


Deeds Not Words

by Pipra_Paprika



Category: Gentleman Jack (TV)
Genre: 20s glamour, Al Capone - Freeform, Anne Lister is a badass of epic proportions, F/F, Gangsters, Hopefully the right ratio of fluff:angst:smut, Mariana causing trouble, Minor self-harm thoughts, OMG I'm so in love with the show!, OMG that thermometer..., Oh! And warning for mentions of rape (Mr Ainsworth's shit), Roaring 20s, Set ~1920s, Shady Stock Market trades, Shrink!Anne Lister, Suffrage Movement, The smut chapter is now up!, True love :), Where to begin?, Women rights and gay rights (major theme), this will have a happy ending
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2020-03-19 21:05:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 13
Words: 34,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18978328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pipra_Paprika/pseuds/Pipra_Paprika
Summary: In 1919, after having (accidentally) shoved one of her tenants into a wall and (not so accidentally) tried to run off to join the Air Force, Anne Lister is invited to leave the Shibden estate.With few options left for her in Britain, Miss Lister travels to New York, on the journey meeting a fellow Englishwoman - the wealthy heiress, Ann Walker, sent to the US in the hope of finding a doctor who can cure her seemingly endless aches and pains.However, Miss Walker’s troubles are quickly attributed to ‘lack of the vote’ by the enigmatic, (and maybe rather snobbish) Miss Lister, (suffering occasionally from the same kind of pain) who puts herself immediately to work curing her friend of both her physical ailments and a lifelong loneliness.Get ready for glamour, gangsters, new money and, of course, a budding forbidden romance as Anne juggles rescuing an oil company with securing the hand of the love of her life.(Or, the one where Anne Lister was born a century later and had more of a chance.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Alright. People.
> 
> Firstly, this story, and particularly the way it is portrayed in the series really speaks to me.
> 
> So, from the heart, here is 'Deeds Not Words'.
> 
> The title is the slogan of the Suffragette group headed by Emmeline Pankhurst (mentioned here) as there are some more historical shout-outs in the story (I will try and keep things historically accurate, but there is only a number of things I can be bothered to google while I have this incredible love story to write about.)
> 
> Also, I envision these characters as more fictional - kind of as portrayed on screen because the idea of using real people in fiction, even if they are long-deceased, make me a wee bit uncomfortable, I'll admit.
> 
> So, this is like the series. The most romantic thing I have ever seen...
> 
> *Big dreamy eyes*
> 
> Enjoy the story (it may get quite long!)

“We think it might be better…if you were to start afresh,” Jeremy Lister said at last, catching his daughter accusing gaze across the table. “Something new.”

 

“What?” Anne demanded of her father, beady eyes stealing his own accusingly. “What do you mean?”

 

“Well…with your aunt’s death…” Jeremy said, feeling rather weary all of a sudden.

 

“And what about it?” Anne demanded tartly, now paying rapt attention.

 

“The…um…well, the estate has been left to…of course, yourself and your sister,” Jeremy said gruffly.

 

“…And this is why I’m ‘starting afresh’?” Anne wondered, arching her brow.

 

“Well, yes, I mean…you’re both grown women...”

 

“Are we really?” Anne said dryly. “I hadn’t noticed.”

 

“Please Anne, be serious,” said her sister, the _better_ sister.

 

“So we’re really being serious here,” Anne said, with a dawning horror somewhere in her gut.

 

Throughout her life there had always been the risk of rejection but, perhaps until now, she hadn’t truly believed that her family could be so seriously ashamed of her eccentric behaviour. 

 

“This is _seriously_ my starting afresh?”

 

“The estate has been in the Lister family for seven generations,” Jeremy began, quickly losing heart faced with his daughter’s furious expression (and she _did_ do fury well). “And will, we hope be in the family for seven more, which is why-”

 

“Why you want Marian to have the estate and for me to bugger off somewhere else,” Anne finished, in her own words and considerably more succinctly.

 

“Please don’t use that word,” Marian said quickly, with a shudder.

 

“Because she is engaged to marry and I am not, is that it?” Anne said, almost shouted. “Because-”

 

“Because her children, yes, with said husband, will continue the family line and should therefore inherit our family home,” interrupted her father calmly.

 

“We’ll buy you out, Anne,” Marian said looking hopeful as her sister’s head snapped around to glare at her instead. “Half the value of the estate will be yours to do with…as you see fit.”

 

“Look, a school friend of mine owns a company in New York City,” Jeremy continued. “One of the directors is about to resign his position and I have spoken with the other directors and pulled a few strings and they’ve agreed you may take an active role in the company (political climate willing, that is). You might be just what they need! You can settle down. Perhaps America is your chance to be a little more…yourself. God knows they’re more liberal.”

 

“You’re…you’re getting rid of me?”

 

Anne’s face crumpled as the truth came to settle.

 

No matter how closely related to people she was, or home many times somebody professed to love her, they never really wanted her, not in the end.

 

“My God you actually are!” she gasped.

 

“No, Anne. We’re just thinking of what’s best. None of us are getting any younger and-”

 

“You think I _choose_ to be different?” Anne shouted. 

 

“Perhaps not, but there’s no harm in trying not to be!” Marian said passionately. “And with this chance to reinvent yourself, maybe you could manage it.”

 

“I can manage an estate better that any man could and you know it,” she hissed back to her sister, both her bitterest enemy and her staunchest ally.

 

“Unless you are willing to marry-” Marian began.

 

“I _never_ will,” Anne cried vehemently, eyes stinging.

 

“Then it’s settled,” Jeremy said.

 

Anne stood, and looked upon the two people in the world she could call kin. She mustered all the dignity she could.

 

“Fine,” she said flatly, and left the dining room.

 

Storming upstairs, Anne slammed her door like a child. A big forty-one year-old child.

 

A big-forty-one-year-old child who didn’t want to be sent away for loving other women, or for wearing trousers or for writing to Emmeline Pankhurst.

 

But, the truth remained. Having won the vote or not, Miss Lister didn’t have the means to support herself unless the took the money offered in lieu of the estate, and the estate had, for a number of years, made it quite clear that it didn’t want her.

 

Faced with the stomach-scouring sting of rejection she had felt many times during her interesting life, traitorously, Anne started to cry. And, as she prepared to pen the letter to…well, let’s say a very _dear_ friend of hers, more traitorously still, she started to cry harder.

 

 _Dear Mariana,_ she wrote.

 

_I’m afraid I’m moving to New York._

 

_I don’t think we shall ever see each other again._

 

_Sorry._

 

_Yours with great regret,_

 

_Anne Lister._

 

There. Brief and informative, everything a letter should be.

 

She sealed it and gave it to the servant to send, then settled down at her table to document the day.

 

Her writing, typically so neat, was nearly illegible in the face of such enormous grief. It was not the fact that her family were all but demanding she move (and why would she stay after they had suggested such a thing?) but that they felt they _ought_ to, for reasons outside Anne’s control.

 

Society was stifling and losing some of the gains in power that women in the country had made during the war now that the working men were back was something Anne felt to be keenly painful.

 

Perhaps America really _was_ the answer?

 

Deciding it couldn’t be any worse, only days later, a very grim-faced Anne Lister boarded the King George, the ship that would take her across an ocean of water and ideology and deposit her in New York - the city that never sleeps.

 

“Or never sleeps with who society tells them to, as soon as I get there,” she muttered, seizing the rail of the gangplank with perhaps unnecessary force and propelling herself inside the belly of the ship.

 

“She’ll be aright,” her sister nodded with rather forced optimism. “She…she’ll be alright.”

 

“Alright?” Jeremy laughed sadly, lamenting the tough love he’d had to show his eldest daughter. “The City won’t know what’s hit it!”

 

***

 

 _Sea travel is filthy, or certainly is when the seas are so rough,_ Anne wrote when she was well and truly away from British shores. _For days now, I have been cramped up in this cabin and goodness knows if there’s one thing I cannot stand it is confinement._

 

_The ship itself, however, is very fine. They just finished converting it back into an ocean liner after it was a battleship in the war. I was rather hoping they would still have some torpedoes on board but I should be so lucky!_

 

_Yes, in fact the whole expedition thus far has turned out to be nothing but a bore. Moreover, I find myself rather disenchanted with the female populace. How did all the women become so fat and ugly during the war?_

 

_Perhaps it it not their rather disappointing appearance that dissuades me. Perhaps I am missing Mariana more than I thought, or at least regret that we did not share a proper goodbye. However, her choosing to marry a man put a stop to the idea of a long-term, mutual relationship quite satisfactorily._

 

 _I will not sleep with another man’s wife, and I had always made that clear. Even the ‘disturbed and_ _perverse’ among us must draw some boundaries._

 

_I don’t know why I write so sentimentally. Perhaps a lonely bed feels colder in the middle of the ocean?_

 

_But now I fear my ramblings will have to cease, for it is time for dinner._

 

_Why I was excitedly anticipating meals of mouldy ship’s biscuits and pickled fish I shall never know - the food here is actually rather boring, and palatable enough that any real sailor should be ashamed._

 

_(If it’s any more of that French muck I shall go mad!)_

 

Sighing, Anne slammed the book closed.

 

After dressing formally in her usual somber clothes, Miss Lister made her way to the dining hall on the ship and selected her meal. She had always had an admirable, though not quite ladylike appetite, despite being rather wiry in stature, and finished her food with gusto.

 

After having eaten, she was in a foul mood, despite her sated hunger, and went to storm off back to her cabin and Freud, but it was then that her eyes found something very, very beautiful.

 

 _Fat and ugly women? I_ **_do_ ** _apologise!_

 

The woman looked fairly young and shivered, despite the warmth in the crowded room, at a table all by herself looking far less comfortable with the solitude than Anne had been.

 

She was oddly overdressed, even amongst the sea of guests adorned for dinner in their smartest things, with the air of someone who has a lot of money and no idea what to do with it.

 

She somehow reminded Miss Lister of little dandelion clock, strangely transparent and one breath away from total disintegration. 

 

She was also very decidedly green in the face, and very decidedly _not eating._

 

“Are you quite alright, madam?” Anne had asked before she could wonder why she had bothered to ask it.

 

“I just…don’t feel quite well,” breathed the dandelion, trembling, eyes a little wider as she took in the other woman over the top of her expensive and uneaten meal.

 

Anne was dressed in a long skirt with matching jacket with a rather high collar - the whole ensemble making her look rather…austere…

 

Ann thought she looked wonderful. 

 

Goodness! What _poise!_

 

“Perhaps I should return to my cabin,” she continued with the small quake of worry in her voice that came with making any kind of decision. “This…I don’t know if coming down here was a good idea.”

 

“Surely it was,” chuckled the taller woman. “Otherwise how could anyone admire your lovely dress?”

 

Anne gave the…dress…an _extremely_ admiring look.

 

“Oh this, I don’t know,” Miss Walker stammered, dipping her eyes from where they had chosen to rest on her companion’s jaw-line. “My cousin says it makes me look like a beige wedding cake.”

 

“Well, you do look rather edible,” Miss Lister whispered. “I’ll admit.”

 

Ann giggled, and shot Miss Lister a enquiring look, but wasn’t brave enough to wonder what her stern-looking new acquaintance could mean by her comment.

 

“Well, that’s very kind of you,” she smiled gratefully.

 

“So, may I ask you why you are feeling so unwell?” Anne said, sitting down next to the subject of her scrutiny. “You haven’t even a thing, look!”

 

The dandelion frowned.

 

“I…um, well I’m not a keen traveller, you see,” she said in a whisper. “And um…I’m not too fond of… _boats.”_

 

She looked at Anne with terror in her big periwinkle eyes.

 

“The Titanic _sank,_ you know,” she continued, quieter still, as if the ship might hear and get ideas.

 

Anne chuckled darkly.

 

“I think calling any ship ‘unsinkable’ is just tempting fate, wouldn’t you agree?”

 

“But you don’t think…you don’t think _we_ might sink, do you?” Miss Walker continued, earnest with terror. “It’s been awfully rocky. I haven’t slept a wink since we left Bristol.”

 

Anne peered into the younger woman’s face critically where dark shadows were chalked under her light eyes.

 

“Hmm, I can see that,” Anne said, tracing one of the shadows experimentally.

 

Ann Walker’s heart gave a little lurch. She attributed it to fear.

 

“I’m just afraid that I’ll be in my cabin,” the dandelion clock gushed, pleased to finally share some of her anxiety about a horrible premature death. “And suddenly all the water will come in and I’ll…”

 

“Well, the Titanic was another story,” Anne said with dismissive reassurance. “Totally different engineering. You see, the ship’s hull was divided into chambers so that if one were breached, the others would provide the buoyancy the ship would require to stay afloat. This is different. A more traditional but yet better reinforced hull. ”

 

Anne’s eyes began to shine and she spoke more passionately, leaning forward in her seat and gesticulating wildly (to the mild alarm of Miss Walker).

 

“In fact, in the future we may not need boats at all to transverse the Atlantic!” she continued breathlessly. “Did you know that last year an _aeroplane_ made it all the way across the ocean? From Ireland, I think, _all the way_ to the United States! Isn’t that incredible? To _fly…”_

 

Miss Lister sighed happily.

 

“Just think! Plane loads of people…It mightn't even take a day!”

 

Miss Lister’s face fell somewhat.

 

“I’m sorry, I must be boring you, so…I…forgot myself…” she said, seeing that the dandelion’s beautifully open expression had become rather glazed as she stared at her.

 

“Not at all!” Miss Walker exclaimed with a disbelieving laugh. “Goodness! _I_ must be boring _you!”_

 

“Of course not!” Anne grinned. “Discussing one’s impending doom at sea I find most stimulating.”

 

Miss Walker gave a nervous breathy chuckle as they shared a moment of eye contact.

 

It felt like rather a long moment.

 

“So…what brings you to America,” Ann asked, retreating back into the convention of conversation, now that she had begun to feel rather peculiar all of a sudden.

 

“Family,” Anne said vaguely.

 

“Oh! Are you visiting them?” Miss Walker asked interestedly.

 

“Leaving them.”

 

The dandelion clock woman looked very sad for a moment.

 

“Oh…well, I’m really the last of my brood,” she said in her quiet way that made Miss Lister strain to listen. “…Well, that’s not true - I still have my cousin and my sister Elizabeth…and my aunts…And Mrs and…and Mr Ainsworth are always very good to me…”

 

The younger woman frowned for a moment, with such an intensity that Miss Lister longed to demand what she was thinking.

 

“They weren’t too keen on the idea of my taking such a long trip,” Miss Walker continued. “What with my ill health and all, but we’ve tried all the doctors in London, and they don’t know what’s wrong with me, so we thought, you know, we might try...”

 

Anne raised an eyebrow.

 

“The only ailment you seem to be suffering from in an empty stomach, here…”

 

Anne pushed the plate of food closer to Miss Walker.

 

“I could have them walk it back up for you if you would like,” Anne offered hopefully.

 

“Um…that’s quite alright,” Miss Walker said. “But thank you, that was very kind.”

 

Anne shrugged and then raised her glass of whiskey.

 

“To your health,” she said with a strange little smirk. “Soon may it improve.”

 

“They’re thinking of bringing in prohibition in America, aren’t they?” the little dandelion said, perhaps to put off eating for a few more moments.

 

“Then we must drink while was can, mustn’t we?” Miss Lister replied with the sparkle of humour in her eye. “I myself intend to be _thoroughly_ drunk for the reminder of this blasted crossing.”

 

The dandelion giggled and attempted some food, though after a few mouthfuls, which Miss Lister had supervised very closely, she daintily abandoned the meal.

 

“I don’t think I can manage any more,” she admitted, giving the most darling little stifled yawn.

 

“Oh! I’m sorry if I’m keeping you up,” the mysterious stern woman said, looking fondly down at her wonderful new discovery.

 

“No, no…” Miss Walker insisted.

 

“And, goodness, forgive me!” Miss Lister said, laughing in quite an unnervingly charming way. “I haven’t introduced myself. I’m Anne Lister, of Shibden, well, previously of Shibden.”

 

“I’m Ann too, Ann Walker,” the dandelion informed Miss Lister. “But with no ‘e’.”

 

 “Well, goodnight, Miss Walker,” Anne said as she helped the dandelion kindly to her feet and led her gently to the plush staircase from the dining hall to the cabins.

 

The dandelion clock changed colour from ghostly white to rose pink as she blushed.

 

“Goodnight Miss Lister…” she whispered.

 

 

***

 

 

It was the early morning and sleep had not yet found Miss Lister.

 

Groaning with frustration, she flipped onto her stomach and, taking two tight fistfuls of her pillow, crushed her hips into the mattress.

 

Beneath her, in the dark realms of imagination, was the beautiful Miss Walker, lying like the perfect porcelain doll she resembled, lashes batting prettily with pleasant surprise and unquestionable arousal as Anne ground herself against her.

 

“Oh stop it,” Anne whispered to herself angrily, as the illusion was shattered almost immediately by the rather less satisfactory rub of starched cotton rather than smooth flesh.

 

She was being ridiculous. 

 

Well, no. Not _ridiculous,_ as such, but she really had jumped the gun a little. 

 

Miss Walker was young…innocent… _ill,_ for God’s sake…

 

But what Anne had seen in that last over-the-shoulder glance of Miss Walker’s as she ascended the stairs, had been _attraction._

 

In what capacity, it was hard to know, but it had certainly been there.

 

Perhaps Miss Walker was lying awake too, thinking of her? Perhaps she was frightened of the waves? And perhaps Anne, herself a seasoned traveller, ought to offer comfort?

 

No, she’d get some air.

 

Grabbing a cigarette and dressing herself carelessly, Anne left her cabin and went onto the deck, letting the freezing sea wind cleanse her of the uncomfortable heat that had lingered under her collar since her conversation with the lovely Miss Walker.

 

She looked out over the darkness that was the ocean and there, on the horizon were the twinkling lights of New York City and her new life.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the wonderful responses I've had to this!
> 
> And episode six? Can anyone even?
> 
> I think I've gone into some kind of emotional shock, anyone with me?
> 
> So, to get over that, a bit more glitzy AU...

“Eugenie, have you packed all your things? We’re not going back for anything if you’ve forgotten it.”

 

Anne frowned as she fastened her waistcoat and adjusted the long but slim skirt she had taken to wearing, her only concession to modern women’s dress.

 

“And Eugenie, I must find an accountant right away if I am going to be meeting with the other directors…”

 

“Already, Madame Lister?” the girl replied in French. “Do you not want to rest after your trip?”

 

“Whatever for?” Miss Lister laughed, not all that kindly. “I didn’t _swim_ the Atlantic, did I?”

 

Eugenie knew her employer well enough not to make any attempt at an answer and merely continued to pack Miss Lister’s trunk so it could leave the ship with them.

 

They had docked.

 

This was America.

 

Despite her reluctance about the whole business, Anne couldn’t help but be impressed by her first glimpse of New York. There were buildings such as she had never seen, great towering things with scaffolding wrapped like webbing up their faces.

 

She was awed. 

 

And interrupted.

 

“Miss Lister!” cried a voice. “Miss List- Yes! Sorry to…I just…”

 

“Miss Walker?” Anne said, smiling as she young woman arrived breathlessly beside her.

 

Through the swarm of passengers, had come dashing a little flower.

 

Miss Walker was more like a daisy today than a dandelion, in a smart white coat with a yellow beret perched atop of her curls.

 

The daisy presented Miss Lister with a slip of expensive paper with an address neatly written on it. 

 

Miss Lister was not to know, but the was in fact the third attempt at writing the note - the other two had been discarded for the writing not being even enough. The wonderful Anne Lister must have neatly-written notes, must she not?

 

“I wondered…Well, goodness knows we shall both be busy getting used to a new place,” Miss Walker laughed nervously. “But I…I’ve been thinking and…”

 

The daisy became rather delightfully pink all of a sudden.

 

“Perhaps you could call on me at my house?” she rushed before common sense or propriety could stop her. “If you wanted, of course. If not, I completely understand and I’m sorry I-”

 

“Miss Walker, I would be _delighted_ to visit your home,” Anne said, in the voice it was hard to argue with.

 

The young woman beamed, though perhaps sadly, as if Miss Lister’s answer had been a charitable act, rather than one of shameful lust.

 

“Well…super!” Ann said, not quite knowing what to do with herself in the face of acceptance.

 

“Miss Walker, please, you must not tire yourself out,” said a man, rushing to her side as if she might sag with the exhaustion of running over to Miss Lister.

 

“Oh! Of course, sorry,” she said, shooting Anne a parting smile and letting herself to be led away.

 

The lady’s chauffeur helper her into her motor car, whereupon she was wrapped in furs like a precious little parcel that might shatter at the slightest jolt of the car.

 

Anne Lister’s eyes tracked every step of this progress, drinking it in.

 

“I’ll see you soon!” the daisy called, and then wilted under the attention of the couple of stares she had attracted by doing so.

 

She was never so bold as to shout, or normally even _speak_ in public. What _had_ come over her?

 

 _Miss Lister_ knew very well what had come over her.

 

Love.

 

Grinning to herself, Anne examined the paper that the young woman had given her. It seemed Miss Walker lived in one of the more enviable regions of the city, only to be expected of the owner of the handsome maroon motorcar which had begun to move, carrying it’s precious cargo home.

 

Miss Lister got into her own cab.

 

“I want a hotel as close to this address as possible,” she told the driver, flinging the paper at him. “I have a friend in the area.”

 

“Er…si- ma’am?” the driver said, unsure of his passenger. “I…guess you wouldn’t know but…that’s all the way in Brooklyn…”

 

“All respectable society is in Brooklyn,” Miss Lister retorted sniffily. “I shall stay in Brooklyn.”

 

Reaching the neighbourhood of her choosing. Miss Lister procured a hotel, a smart one that a sensible single woman without income wouldn’t really choose, especially since the money from Shibden hadn’t been wired through yet.

 

It was grand, but functional and Miss Lister found it rather to her liking, especially owing to the nearby amenities…

 

_Just to think, the wonderful Miss Walker lives only two blocks away!_

 

Yes, Anne had every intention of making good on her promise to visit her beautiful new acquaintance, but first she needed to set herself up and introduce herself to her fellow directors.

 

 

***

 

“You must be er…Miss…Lister?” asked the first man that Anne’s critical dark eyes had settled on upon entering their- _her_ company boardroom.

 

“Yes, how are we all, gentlemen,” Anne asked cordially, wringing each of the men’s hands in turn with a grip that made their fingers tingle. “A pleasure meeting you, I hope we’ll all enjoy working with one another.”

 

One of the men coughed awkwardly.

 

“Ahhh, perhaps you haven’t been informed,” he began. “But er…Paleopower is actually hoping to…merge with another...er… _venture._ And, as such, we would all take more of a back-seat role to the running of the company.”

 

“And we would be what?” Anne wondered, not at all casually. “Shareholders only?”

 

A third man stepped forward. He was devilishly handsome and had one of those smooth New York voices that could make any straight woman swoon.

 

Anne Lister was not, so she didn’t.

 

“Miss Lister, you are a very lucky woman,” he began with his easy charm. “You see you’re about to make a huge sum of money. This other firm has offered to buy us out, big pay-outs for all of us! You could…God, you could go on _holiday!_ Or…buy some new clothes!”

 

Anne’s glare became suddenly a lot more hawk-like.

 

“All you have to do, honey,” he told her with a shadow of a wink. “Is just pop your name on there, and you’ll be rich. Overnight.”

 

“What am I signing?” Anne demanded of the man, who was taken aback by her tone. “Where is the rest of the document?”

 

“This is all the bit you need, sugar,” he said, teeth glinting under the ceiling lights.

 

Anne thought he could do with losing a few…

 

“Where is the part of the document explaining the terms on which I am signing?” she asked the gathered group.

 

“It’s just-”

 

“Bring it to me!” Miss Lister commanded.

 

It appeared. Then, while the group watched her, Anne read the pages and pages of tiny text.

 

She put it down with a sigh.

 

“So…the only reason you agreed that I could co-direct this venture,” she said at last. “Is because I am a _woman,_ and you thought me _stupid_ …enough to sign this.”

 

“Miss Lister!” laughed the first man. “This is…You would be receiving a considerable sum of money!”

 

“I _consider_ the sum _scandalous!”_ Anne snapped. “The company is worth more than that.”

 

“But no!” the handsome man said passionately. “After the war…who will _need_ so much oil? There’s no fighting.”

 

“No fi-…I can’t _believe_ I’m hearing this!” Anne spluttered. “The motor car, gentlemen! Factories…the boat I have spend near enough a bloody _week_ on to be here today, all guzzle your oil! _Our_ oil!”

 

She threw the paper down in disgust.

 

“I won’t do it!” she informed them.

 

“We were rather hoping you’d be reasonable about this,” said Mr Charming.

 

“Well, now you know me better,” Anne snapped. “We will meet here tomorrow at nine AM _sharp_ to discuss what we’re going to do. And in the meantime, you can contact your…whoever he is, and tell him the deal’s off!”

 

She turned back to the charming man.

 

“Have a nice day, _sugar,”_ she said sagely.

 

And with that, she stalked out.

 

***

 

 

“I had a business meeting this morning and I really needed your calming influence,” Miss Lister said, shrugging off her coat into James’ waiting hands.

 

“Have you found anywhere to stay?” Miss Walker asked, showing her guest into her lovely sitting room.

 

“Ah, yes,” Anne said. “The Grand.”

 

“The Grand!” Miss Walker repeated excitedly. “But that’s just around the corner! What a wonderful coincidence!”

 

“Well…yes,” Anne said, finding Miss Walker’s carpet suddenly rather fascinating.

 

So did Miss Walker, who found it a little difficult to address her guest owing to a strange breathlessness which had taken over her.

 

“So…what happened in your meeting?” she said at last, peeking hopefully at her distinguished visitor.

 

Yes, what _did_ happen in a business meeting? 

 

Miss Walker had always wondered. Her father, a brilliant industrialist, had had his days packed full of them prior to his untimely death.

 

Anne groaned and pushed a hand to her forehead.

 

“The idiots want to sell the company,” she burst crossly. _“My_ company, now. And they want to do it for much less than the company is really worth. They’re lazy and incompetent, and _damn_ all of them.”

 

Miss Walker looked frankly scandalised, but gave a small giggle.

 

“Pardon the language…” Anne said, pleased to see no disapproval in her acquaintance.

 

“Well you _have_ been to a business meeting,” Ann said admiringly. “So I imagine you could curse all you wanted.”

 

Anne frowned.

 

“Really, though, Miss Walker. I didn’t mean to offend you,” she said seriously. “I would hate for you to think I’d come barging in and…and befouled your...”

 

_“Anne!”_

 

Miss Walker blushed.

 

“If…if I may call you…?”

 

“Of course you may, Ann,” Miss Lister said with a doting smile.

 

“Anne, you haven’t _burst in!”_ Miss Walker insisted, shuffling a little closer to demonstrate her earnestness. “And I won’t get many other visitors and it _really_ is nice to have to company.”

 

“I enjoy your company just as well, Ann,” Miss Lister said, letting her eyes wander over her hostess.

 

Miss Walker was today more of a forget-me-not in a blue dress with a lace trim. A dress that, following the newest of fashion trends, showed rather a bit of…leg…

 

“A lovely dress,” Miss Lister said suddenly, realising she had been staring.

 

“Thank you!” the forget-me-not trilled gladly, and proceeded to launch into a very detailed explanation of the dress and it’s creative process.

 

 _An_ ** _artist,_** thought Miss Lister, barely listening as her whole attention was spent watching Miss Walker’s perfectly plump little lips form her words.

 

Her sweet little upturned nose…her big, expressive grey eyes, thick lashes and freckles…

 

“…So what do you think?”

 

“Sorry, Miss Walker?” Anne said, snapped from her reverie.

 

Miss Walker’s face fell. 

 

Ah…

 

_Miss Walker is a strange creature. Heaven knows she is rich and beautiful, but it is as if she feels she is a burden. A burden I would be happy to carry, though I doubt very much a thought such as that has yet crossed her mind…_

 

Anne knew she would have to pay better attention in future, but what could she say to excuse her lapse in concentration? I’m falling in love with you?

 

“Um…I was saying…You could be pop round tomorrow…” Ann whispered, as if afraid of being reprimanded for such foolish optimism. “We might even have some biscuits, the chocolate ones they’re so fond of over here…if you…”

 

And then Anne did something terrible, something fiendish.

 

She smiled the same smile that had won her the most unlikely of people from the palaces of India to the Scottish moorlands. Caring yet impish. Haughty but understanding.

 

Rather undeniably attractive.

 

As a result, Ann was frankly alarmed by the wash of fondness that came over her.

 

“I think that sounds _wonderful,”_ Miss Lister whispered to the poor trembling forget-me-not, seeing Ann’s dilemma very clearly. _“…Miss Walker…”_


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your support!
> 
> And my God, that FUCKING thermometer...
> 
> She's broken me.
> 
> I have to get that into this story somehow...

Anne strode down to the hotel lobby at her typical alarming pace.

 

_If it’s that bloody idiot Marshall from the company again…_

 

“Miss Lister?” said the tinny voice in the Grand’s lobby telephone after the employee had handed it to Anne. “Uh, hullo…it’s it’s James…Miss Walker’s-”

 

“Yes, I know who you are. What is it?” Anne barked authoritatively.

 

“Miss Walker really hasn’t really been feeling well,” James continued, having dropped his voice a little, clearly not calling under orders. “She hasn’t eaten a morsel of food since Sunday and I was hoping you might be able to talk her round a little. She’s very fond of you, you see.”

 

“Right away,” Anne said, Marshall forgotten.

 

Only minutes later, Miss Lister’s dark overcoat could be seen storming past the concierge in Ann’s building and arriving at her apartment door.

 

Upon her arrival, James nodded his appreciation to the woman who, despite being rather alarming, was also Miss Walker’s main topic of conversation.

 

Or had been, before the doctor’s appointment. Now Miss Walker wasn’t saying anything.

 

“Where is she?” Anne demanded of the man.

 

“In the sitting room,” James said softly. “Please be gentle with her, she is prone to these sort of episodes.”

 

“Right, thank you,” Anne nodded, and pushed past him into the room, raising her voice. “Are we going to eat anything then, Miss Walker, or starve?”

 

James winced.

 

“Because I can’t be having that, Miss Walker,” she continued. “Not when I am so fond of you…”

 

Miss Lister’s eyes widened as, having struggled to find the young woman, she saw her now wedged between two chairs against the wall, trembling with sweet little sobs.

 

“Ann!” she gasped as dashed to the poor young woman, today a rather wilted freesia in her pale clothes, curled up into a tiny ball in the corner of her sitting room.

 

“Miss…Miss Lister,” Ann gasped, getting shakily to her feet and defiantly scrubbing at the tear marks on her cheeks.

 

“Ann, are you alright?” Miss Lister breathed, darting forwards to take her hands.

 

The freesia shook her head furiously and buried her face in her knees.

 

“Alright then,” Anne said gently tugging Ann to her feet - rather difficult as she had become as saggy as a marionette puppet.

 

Miss Walker collapsed on to her plush velvet sofa and wept.

 

“Ann, what _is_ the matter?” Miss Lister demanded. “Have you had bad news from England?”

 

“I…I went to the doctors…” Ann whispered.

 

“Yes, and what happened?”

 

“I…he…”

 

“What did he say?” Anne blurted, afraid. “Are you very ill?”

 

“No…Well…not really but…”

 

The freesia gave a weak sniffle and Anne began rubbing soothing circles on her hands. They were delightfully soft.

 

“He said the pain in my back is just in my head,” Anne confessed through her shaky sobs. “He said that…he said that is has to do with…when sometimes I…”

 

“What?” Anne whispered in her most honeyed voice.

 

“I hear voices, Anne,” Miss Walker hissed - eyes wide and terrified.

 

“Ah…” Anne said slowly, settling back into the seat, thoughtful.

 

“I just…the doctor referred me to a psychiatrist,” Ann garbled. “But I told him I’d been before and it just made it w-worse so he said I had to try this…new thing instead…”

 

“Psychoanalysis?” Anne asked her.

 

“Yes!” Ann cried. “Where they ask you all these qu-questions and…”

 

Miss Walker looked bleak.

 

“Anne, they think I’m mad,” she told her friend with earnest sadness. “I have…religious hysteria, or something, because of the voices and the pains and I think it’s because I-”

 

Miss Walker looked away from her friend very quickly.

 

“Miss Walker,” Anne laughed softly, brushing the tears from her satin cheek. “You are not _mad,_ you’re just an _artist.”_

 

Ann was still crying. In fact, Miss Lister’s kind words had made her cry almost harder.

 

“But please don’t be cutting your ears off,” she continued with a chuckle. “They’re far too pretty for that, hmmm?”

 

She gave one of the ears a reassuring stroke.

 

“I don’t want to see a doctor, a…psychoanalyst,” Ann whispered desolately. “I can’t…”

 

She shuddered.

 

“They ask too many questions,” she said looking sick. “And I just c- _couldn’t…”_

 

Miss Lister pursed her lips thoughtfully and hung a comforting arm around Ann’s little shoulders.

 

“You could talk to me, though, couldn’t you?” she asked.

 

“Do _you_ practice psychoanalysis?” Ann asked, willing to believe just about anything that Anne told her about herself.

 

“Not officially,” Anne conceded. “I was not permitted to sit the exams for the degree.”

 

She threw her free arm up in the air.

 

“The joys of being the wrong sex! But I’ve read all the books,” she murmured, close to Miss Walker who had curled up like a squirrel. “And I even studied Freud’s work in Austria, you know. Before the war, of course.”

 

“So… _you_ could?” Ann whispered, eyes alight with hope.

 

“In theory,” Miss Lister told her. “And I consider myself just as, if not more, able than whoever you’d otherwise be sent to.”

 

Then, like the sun coming out from behind a cloud, Ann smiled - perfect and dimpled.

 

“Alright, then,” she agreed, laughing with relief. “When could we start?”

 

Anne pursed his lips in a calculated moment of deliberation.

 

“How about right now?”

 

***

 

 

Miss Walker was grateful to be able to send a telegram back to England reporting progress.

 

Yes, she _was_ seeking medical help.

 

The fact that this came in the form of the rather eccentric though eminently clever Miss Lister, Ann had the sense not to mention.

 

And, shockingly, she was rather looking forward to her sessions.

 

What a fascinating person Anne really was! She’d travelled all over the place! And how she dressed in those suits…

 

Ann, herself, dressed carefully for Miss Lister’s next visit. 

 

Well she would, wouldn’t she? It was like going to see a doctor, (although whether that would really call for the effort of curling up her hair, painting her nails a different colour each day to match her outfit and wearing such expensive perfume, Ann didn’t know).

 

“Miss Lister’s here,” James told her when the promised hour finally arrived.

 

Ann’s heart hammered.

 

“Send her in, please!” she said breathlessly.

 

And then in she came, at her characteristically impossible speed like a dark shadow of energy.

 

“Miss Walker!” she grinned with her toothy smile.

 

Ann dipped her head shyly.

 

“Miss Lister…”

 

 _Why_ Miss Lister was agreeing to do this for free, when she no doubt had a million better things to be doing, Ann could not fathom, yet there she was, giving Ann that very particular look she couldn’t put a name to. 

 

“Any tea, Miss Lister?” Ann asked in her mousey way. “Or coffee, even?”

 

“Tea would be wonderful,” Miss Lister decided. “Thank you,”

 

She nodded sharply to James.

 

“Now, how have you been feeling these past few days?” she asked, turning to her cherished patient.

 

“Better from talking to you last time,” Ann said truthfully. “But I-”

 

“You…?”

 

Miss Lister raised her eyebrow questioningly, but Ann shook her head.

 

She didn’t quite know how to explain the strange dreams she had started to have, involving vague flashes of white sheets, bare skin, black eyes and that wonderful wolfish smile which was currently hidden under concern as Miss Lister frowned at her.

 

And _how_ would she explain the ache between her legs, and the overwhelming conviction that she was bleeding weeks early, thanks to the wetness on her nightdress every morning when she woke?

 

Well, she wouldn’t. Wouldn’t even try. Even when Miss Lister gave her that look, as if she already knew.

 

“Er…it’s not important,” Ann said lamely.

 

“Well, in that case, Miss Walker,” Miss Lister said with her winning smile. “Shall we get started?”

 

Anne motioned Miss Walker to her own sofa.

 

Gently, Miss Lister helped Ann down and laid her flat and, lifting her patient’s head, Miss Lister slotted a pillow there.

 

“How’s you back?” she asked gently and with worryingly genuine concern. “Is this alright?”

 

“Yes, thank you,” Ann replied with a doe-y smile.

 

Then, there was a knock on the door and James popped his head around the corner.

 

“Miss Walker, ma’am, your t-”

 

“Get out!” Anne snapped. “When the door is closed you don’t come in here, understand? This is a highly confidential session!”

 

“Yes, ma’am,” James said, shooting nervous glances between the terrifying guest giving orders and his real employer. “Er…I just...have your tea…”

 

“You can put it down there,” Anne said carelessly motioning to the coffee table.

 

“Thank you, James,” Miss Walker said softly as he retreated.

 

“I’m…er…sorry to interrupt,” he stumbled.

 

And he really was. It looked as if the two women had been about to-

 

Well it wasn’t his place to speculate.

 

But if it _were…_

 

His employer had been lying on her sofa with the other woman leaning hungrily over her. An interesting position, no doubt.

 

Anne tutted as James closed the door with his apologies and Miss Walker laughed despite herself.

 

“I think you frighten him,” Ann giggled.

 

Miss Lister smirked her own laugh.

 

“Good. Serves him right!” she brayed. “It’s important that we aren’t interrupted. We wouldn’t be interrupted in a doctor’s office, so we shouldn’t be interrupted here. Now…”

 

Anne looked down at her treasure fondly, her expression one of boundless excitement.

 

“Let’s start.”

 

 

_A fascinating creature, is Miss Walker. She seems thoroughly afraid of herself, though so open to the rest of the world - like a wide-eyed child._

 

_But she is no child, that I can tell you. What I can see past her dress assures me of that._

 

_A pity she does not yet understand why she is trying to impress me (and I do confess myself impressed)._

 

_I can tell what she wants by the look in her eyes, how she permits me to help her to and from the sofa, though she does not require my assistance._

 

_My sidelong looks are returned._

 

_And one of these days, it will be across a pillow - I’m determined it should be so…_

 

 

“What are you writing, Miss Lister?” Ann chirruped merrily as she daintily drank her tea. “You're always scribbling in that book!”

 

“Let’s call it my session notes,” Miss Lister replied. “Or otherwise my innermost thoughts.”

 

“Oh, then I shan't pry,” Ann said, averting her eyes kindly, though she longed to seize the book, read every page and finally untangle the enigma that was her new friend.

 

Anne chuckled.

 

“Go ahead and read it,” she laughed. “It won't make sense to you. It’s all in code.”

 

“That’s terribly clever!” exclaimed Miss Walker excitedly.

 

“So it your painting, Ann,” Miss Lister said. “I should like to see some of your work, if it isn’t too personal…”

 

Miss Walker was pink with pride.

 

“Oh, well…it is _rather_ personal…” she stumbled. “And I-I don’t paint particularly _well_ …but you can see it.”

 

Anne inclined a ‘yes’ with her head and Miss Walker put her nervous energy to good use, speeding off to fetch some of her watercolours, leaving Miss Lister to admire the sitting room.

 

It was expensively furnished in a style beholden to great wealth, though it didn’t seem that Miss Walker herself herself had chosen any of the decoration.

 

Anne wondered absently what wealthy little Miss Walker would make of Shibden, before realising with a sudden pang that neither were hers.

 

“Thank you, James!” Ann trilled rom the other room.

 

Not a second later, James entered nervously, laden with sketchbooks and canvases.

 

He swiftly retreated leaving Miss Lister to flip through the work.

 

“I know it’s not…Well…I’ve never had any lessons…” Ann said, fidgeting her apology.

 

“They’re fantastic,” Miss Lister smiled, handling the pages like thin slivers of gold leaf. “You’re very talented.”

 

Now an even more delightful shade of pink, (which Anne though would look rather fetching against the white of her bedcovers), Miss Walker dipped her eyes shyly.

 

When she dared raise them again, Miss Lister was sitting rather close.

 

“Ann, you are very good,” she said urgently, eyes singing with sincerity. “These are very good.”

 

 

 _Ann…_ smirked Miss Lister’s dream counterpart that night from over the edge of Miss Walker’s bath tub, trailing her long fingers dreamily through the water. _You’re_ ** _very_** _good…_


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone!
> 
> Thank you for continuing to read and show your support!
> 
> Big hugs and I hope you're all having a wonderful day.

“I feel…listless,” Ann said, gazing at her stylishly coffered ceiling. “Sort of…as if I don’t really exist sometimes. Do you ever feel like that, Anne?”

 

Miss Lister considered.

 

 _“I_ have always existed,” she said thoughtfully and then grinned. “Perhaps a little too much sometimes.”

 

“What do you mean?” Ann asked softly.

 

“I…back in England I was a bit of an oddity, even here I am,” Miss Lister told her, looking a little forlorn. “I have never been able to conform…like it’s a disease I have. I find it quite impossible, can’t even consider it.”

 

“Better than being so plain like me,” Ann said with a small sigh.

 

“Whatever do yo mean?” Anne frowned. “You’re anything _but_ plain, Miss Walker, goodness me!”

 

Ann smiled. And yes, she wasn’t plain. 

 

Anne reached out and took her hand - not plain either.

 

“What _you_ need, Miss Walker,” Anne said with her lively, scheming enthusiasm. “Is _confidence,_ and a political voice.”

 

“How so?” Ann wondered.

 

“I’ve become involved…” Miss Lister began in the voice she used to tell her interesting stories. “…Not majorly, because of the company, with the Suffragettes here.”

 

Little Ann chuckled with uncharacteristic wryness.

 

“I…don’t think my relatives would approve…” she said darkly.

 

“Miss Walker!” Anne laughed, disguising her sudden need to throttle these famous ‘relatives’. “This is New York! The land of dreams! You ought to be able to enjoy that, oughtn’t you?”

 

At the mention of dreams Ann became very thoughtful.

 

“Anne, what does _Freud_ say about dreams?” she asked Miss Lister who was looking alarmingly exhilarated after her outburst.

 

“Ambitions, you mean?” Miss Lister frowned. “Or…?”

 

“Dreams when you’re - sorry - _one_ is asleep?” Miss Walker clarified.

 

She looked at Miss Lister hopefully for an answer, but with the memory of last night’s edition fresh in her mind, she failed to quite meet the woman’s eye.

 

“Why do you ask?” Miss Lister shot back, interested. 

 

“See,” Miss Walker frowned. “I’ve been…” 

 

Ann trailed off, wondering how to phrase her problem.

 

“I’ve been having some very _odd_ sort of dreams…” she whispered. “…Lately.”

 

“When did these start?” Anne asked, now the stern and rather handsome-faced diagnostician which did nothing to help Miss Walker’s discomfort.

 

“When I arrived here,” she answered. “And…once on the boat, I think.”

 

“Nightmares?” 

 

“No,” Ann said, frowning. “They’re very…well…”

 

She felt her face flushing.

 

 _“Enjoyable_ dreams, they just…I don’t know why on Earth I would come up with them.”

 

“They could be a reaction to the change of setting,” Anne said sensibly.

 

“Could be…” Miss Walker agreed.

 

Anne watched her little hand tighten around a fistful of her dress’ hem.

 

“What are the nature of these dreams?” Miss Lister asked, leaning closer. “I…may have had similar ones.”

 

“I couldn’t tell you,” Ann whispered.

 

Miss Lister paused for a moment.

 

“Are they about sex?” she wondered in a confidential whisper.

 

Miss Walker looked alarmed, then confused.

 

“I don’t…No!” she spluttered. “I don’t…well, no, they couldn’t be because…”

 

Her hands flapped uselessly by her sides.

 

“Because that wouldn’t make _sense!”_

 

Miss Lister was very close now.

 

“Miss Walker,” she breathed, eyes strangely syrupy. “Have you ever _had_ sex?”

 

“What?” Ann squeaked, sitting up so suddenly her back stung.

 

“I’m just asking you what Freud would ask you,” Miss Lister said plainly, now sitting much further away.

 

The syrupy look had gone suddenly.

 

“Wha…I…”

 

Ann had no idea how to respond to such a question. 

 

Such a _question!_

 

Had she ever had _…sex?_

 

She felt a trickle of wetness between her legs.

 

“Miss Lister…I think I want to stop now,” she said in a strangled voice. “If you’ll excuse me…”

 

Running from the room, Ann darted to her bedroom and to her en suite bathroom and pulled her skirt and underwear down.

 

No blood.

 

But it had felt like…

 

Perhaps she had an infection?

 

But…then she would have to go to the doctor…and he would have to _look…_

 

Giving a kind of involuntary gasp of terror as she viscerally remembered the sensation of a man’s touch down there. It made her entire body shiver, as if she were trying to shed her own skin.

 

Meanwhile Anne sat, head in hands, in the sitting room.

 

What had she done asking a question like that?

 

What a _bloody_ idiot!

 

She was in such turmoil, she didn’t hear the pattering of Ann’s feet.

 

“Miss Lister?” said the voice of the dandelion from the doorway looking unusually pale and as though she needed the doorframe she was leaning against for support. “Can I offer you any tea?”

 

“No…I’d better be going,” Anne said thickly, swooping to her feet.

 

“Oh…right,” Ann said weakly. “Well…I might go and have a lie down then, I’ll just see you out.”

 

The two women walked in silence to Miss Walker’s door.

 

Anne donned her coat.

 

“I have,” Ann whispered at last, so quietly it could have been a breeze, just as Miss Lister was turning to go.

 

“Sorry?” Anne asked, a little impatiently.

 

“I have had…I’ve…been with somebody,” Miss Walker whispered. “He…it was only the once though…”

 

Anne felt a tightening in her chest.

 

“It was…at his house…” Ann continued. “And…well…we still write to one another…I think he might be coming over from England soon…But yes we…I did.”

 

Miss Walker looked down with the upmost shame.

 

Anne paused, letting her head fall and her eyes squeeze shut in silent defeat. 

 

Of course. Of _course_ there was someone. 

 

I mean, just _look_ at Ann Walker. _Look_ at her. And a young millionaire to boot.

 

Some, sleek, impeccably dressed, _voting_ man popped into Anne’s head and stayed there, long after she had bidden Miss Walker an uncharacteristically brisk goodbye and walked back to her hotel.

 

He leered at Anne from behind her closed eyes.

 

He laid sweet little Ann down in his bed. Removed his underclothes, and hers then parted her legs.

 

And it was so… _violent,_ wasn’t it?  Anne should be _screaming_ if anyone broke into her like that.

 

But the sadistic demon in Anne’s vast mind didn’t make Miss Walker scream, it had her moan, and beg her mystery suitor not to stop doing that… _appalling_ thing to her.

 

Because she was in love with him.

 

And she enjoyed being fucked by him.

 

Taking a shaky breath, Anne picked up Freud’s work from where she had left it, and opened the thing at a random page. 

 

She gave a bark of slightly manic laughter as she was reminded yet again that a higher power did exist by the work of God that was her page selection.

 

 _“Penis envy,”_ read the page’s title.

 

Miss Lister flung the book against the wall, buried her face in her pillow and screamed.

 

***

 

“Morning chaps!” Miss Lister said tartly as she stomped her way into the office she, and the three gentlemen who owned the company with her, shared. “And I hope you finally opened that accounts report, Elton, it doesn't bite.”

 

“I did…” the hopelessly handsome man said. “And…”

 

“And what?” Anne snapped slamming her briefcase down with very little patience for handsome men after her discovery about Miss Walker.

 

“We can’t afford the new expansion,” he told her. “I’ve looked at it forwards, backwards, sideways, upside down, we can’t do it.”

 

“Good Lord, you like the sound of your own voice, don’t you?” Anne said scathingly.

 

“We need to drill for more oil, that’s for sure,” said Marks, the eldest of the four. “We can’t promise all these companies full and not provide them with any!”

 

“To expand, we need money we don’t have,” Mr Handsome declared in his handsome voice. “The banks won’t lend to us with our credit history, that’s for sure.”

 

“Miss Lister, you said you would have found an investor by now,” said Mr Marshall, the last of the directors, with light accusation.

 

“I’m working on it,” Anne said cagily, frowning as she remembered the setback that plan had taken.

 

“We have to write to the holdings company,” Marshall continued. “And tell them that we can’t pay-”

 

“You’ll do nothing of the sort!” Anne snapped, crossing the space between them in one stride to glower at the man. “I _will_ have that money! Soon!”

 

Mr Marks gave a grunt of disbelief.

 

“Alright then, _Miss_ Lister,” he chuckled unkindly. “See to it you do.”

 

 

_It chafes my pride, but I know that I shall have to approach Miss Walker again, soon, and somehow make amends between us. She may be the company’s last hope._

 

_I only pray I have not inflicted permanent damage upon our friendship with my veiled forwardness._

 

_Perhaps, if what I fear is true, friendship is all it will remain._

 

_Perhaps I will have the honour of attending her wedding to this mystery suitor of hers._

 

 

***

 

 

“Miss Walker,” Anne smiled as she entered the room ahead of James who closed the door respectfully behind her as he took his quiet leave.

 

“Miss Lister!” Ann burst, shocked. “I didn’t think you’d…How wonderful to see you! I bought some cakes in case you…for when you came!”

 

“I needn’t stay if you don’t want,” Anne said, taking a seat cautiously. “I wanted to apologise for my…rather shocking behaviour. I really shouldn’t have asked you…last time…”

 

“No! _I’m_ sorry!” Miss Walker interrupted shrilly. “I…I mean, whatever must you _think_ of me?”

 

“I could never think ill of you, Ann,” Miss Lister assured her. “I feared the question I asked you was inappropriate.”

 

“Oh! No!” Miss Walker insisted. “Like you said - it’s only what Freud would have asked me, isn’t that right?”

 

“Hmm, yes,” Anne said, dark eyes more inscrutable than normal. “But if you wanted to stop our sessions I would understand-”

 

“No! I…I feel so much better, Anne, really,” Miss Walker insisted, feeling a sudden panic at the thought of the wonderful Miss Lister going away and never coming back.

 

In fact, she was already bounding towards her sofa where she settled herself down eagerly.

 

“Are we having another session today?” the dandelion asked.

 

Anne pulled a rather haughtily amused look which made Miss Walker’s little tummy flutter.

 

“If you would like,” she said.

 

Ann nodded resolutely and crossed her ankles on the seat which Miss Lister found oddly heart-melting.

 

_Beautiful Miss Walker…How could it ever just be about money…_

 

Feeling a surge of affection for the woman, Anne decided to do something daring.

 

If Ann felt as the older woman suspected she did, the two of them were wasting time while Anne floundered around in the dark.

 

It was time Ann found out what her dreams meant.

 

That was what the sessions were all about, weren’t they?

 

“What are we going to talk about today?” Ann asked, wriggling eagerly.

 

“Actually,” Anne said in her silkiest voice. “I was hoping to do more of a…physical exploration.”

 

Ann’s eyebrows knotted together but she didn’t seem opposed to the idea.

 

Miss Lister stood and walked towards the sofa where Ann was lying, kneeling down beside it.

 

Ann watched bemused as Miss Lister pulled at the tie around her swan-like neck and took it off.

 

Gently, she tied it around Miss Walker’s pretty eyes as a blindfold.

 

“What are we doing?” the dandelion wondered.

 

“It’s a technique,” Anne said in a low voice. “I’m going to do some things to you. Tell me at any point if you feel uncomfortable and want to stop.”

 

“It’s a technique?”

 

“Yes,” Anne breathed, feeling rather hot under the collar. “It’s an effective way we can find out things about ourselves. Now…”

 

Miss Lister felt a surge of heat as she laid her fingers upon Ann’s soft face.

 

“What can you feel?” Anne whispered as she slid her hand down Miss Walker’s burning cheek.

 

“Um…your finger on my…by my neck…” Ann said, a little breathlessly.

 

“How does that make you feel?” Anne whispered next to her ear.

 

“Sort of…”

 

Ann frowned.

 

 _“Is_ this a real technique?” Miss Walker asked, squirming a little.

 

“Oh yes,” Miss Lister purred, sliding her hands down Miss Walker’s arms. “How about this? How does it make you feel? Please, tell me everything or this doesn’t work.”

 

“Sort of…nice, I think, like a hug,” Miss Walker said, a small involuntary smile on her face. 

 

The smile vanished suddenly.

 

“What does _that_ mean?” she worried. “Does that mean I’m mad?”

 

“No, Ann,” Miss Lister said with a chuckle that somehow increased Miss Walker’s sensation. “Now this…”

 

Giving in to the urge, Miss Lister let her hand trace across Ann’s little tummy. She felt the muscles tense.

 

Miss Walker gave a kind of half-moan, more of a huff as though she were uncomfortable and then gasped, sitting up immediately and yanking the blindfold off, eyes wide with panic, as Miss Lister’s thumb grazed over her nipple.

 

“I’m sorry, should I stop?” Anne said urgently.

 

Ann wriggled uncomfortably.

 

“No….it just…”

 

She dropped her voice to the merest of whispers, panic in her eyes.

 

“Anne…I just felt that… _down there…”_

 

She motioned between her skirted legs with a fluttering gesture a look of horror on her face.

 

“And I…”

 

“And you what?”

 

“I’ve never felt…” she stuttered. “Or not really…I…”

 

“Sorry, you’ve never felt…sexual satisfaction before?” Anne asked, intrigued. “Not from this…person?”

 

“Wait!” Miss Walker breathed. “Is _that_ what that was?”

 

Ann gave a little shiver.

 

“No, not even close,” she whispered.

 

“Not when he touched you?” Anne probed.

 

“No, nothing like that,” Miss Walker answered. “I’ve never…”

 

“So you don’t feel…aroused…when you…I presume…think of men?” Miss Lister asked her delicately.

 

“I really don’t think about men, in…in _that_ way,” Ann told her, frowning at the sudden thought that maybe she should.

 

Miss Lister sat back on her heels, triumphant.

 

_God, I love being right all the time._

 

“Does that mean I _am_ mad?” Ann repeated, voice quivering.

 

“No, Miss Walker, you are certainly not mad,” Anne told her, taking her little hands as a comforting gesture (for what was to come might be a rather rocky revelation). “Just… _atypical_ in…certain respects. A bit like me, I should think.”

 

“What does that _mean?”_ Ann burst fearfully.  “Anne, what does this all _mean?”_

 

“I think it means,” Miss Lister said slowly and very carefully. “That you might prefer _women_ to men in a sexual sense.”

 

Ann went completely still.

 

“Surely you can see…” Miss Lister whispered.

 

“B-but…I just…”

 

“Alright then, Ann,” Miss Lister said gently, stroking the back of her clammy hand with her thumb. “Let me ask you something. When you’re lying in bed sometimes and…and you can’t _sleep_ …and you feel like you might want to…have someone in the bed with you and perhaps…”

 

Anne inclined her head in a suggestive manor.

 

“Touch them in a certain way. Who do you think about?” she asked the trembling dandelion. “Harold Lockwood or Mary Pickford?”

 

Ann gave a slightly manic laugh. Laughed and didn’t stop.

 

She knew the game was up.

 

“Neither, Anne,” she said with tears of hysteria in her eyes once she had calmed down sufficiently to speak. “I think about _you.”_


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, end of the season. What are our thoughts?
> 
> I actually cried a little, I'll admit. That bit in the church with the brushing hands...
> 
> I got very sniffly.
> 
> And I'm so pleased Ann found her independence - she started channeling Anne which was sweet, I thought.
> 
> Plus, I was worried they wouldn't end the series with them together based on the preview, but yay! Kiss on a cliff!
> 
> And then they bickered their way into the sunset at the end...
> 
> Roll on season 2!

Back in Halifax, Miss Lister was famous for several things, one of which was her brisk and rather dashing walk which today graced the pavements of Brooklyn between one of the most elegant florist shops in the city and Miss Walker’s glittering apartment building - three floors of which belonged to the young heiress.

 

Buoyed by her success the previous day, Anne was in a wonderful mood and, carrying her bunch of red roses, she docked her bowler hat to a group of giggling women who were looking in a shop window.

 

They stopped to gawk but, to Anne’s satisfaction, she saw a distinct blush on two of the faces as she swaggered away.

 

Yes, her smile was exuding its full Wattage and Miss Walker was about to be a very charmed young woman.

 

_Yesterday an admission, today a kiss, tomorrow…well, I daren’t hope. This is all a fastidiously delicate operation. It took two cups of tea and half an entire Bakewell tart to calm Ann down yesterday._

 

Fastidious delicacy was indeed required but, since all visits so far to the lovely Ann Walker had been under the guise of either polite acquaintance or ‘psychoanalysis sessions’, it was about time Miss Lister made her intensions clear, wasn’t it?

 

Plus, Miss Walker had admitted not only her preference for the fairer sex, but also a marked preference for Anne herself. 

 

The thought of beautiful little Ann tossing and turning her way to sleep between her satin bedclothes with the older woman’s face in her mind made Miss Lister’s walk a little uncomfortable with the clamp of sudden tightness between her legs and the fluttering breathlessness in her lungs.

 

Reaching her destination, Anne rapped on the door impatiently for the concierge then flung herself up the stairs, two at a time, to Miss Walker’s apartment and, more importantly, the woman herself.

 

“Miss Walker…” she began charmingly.

 

“Oh...Hello, Anne,” the dandelion replied in a half-whisper.

 

Anne frowned seeing Miss Walker’s gaze travel distractedly back to the wall after giving her a rather anxious look.

 

_I was rather worried that after her admission yesterday Miss Walker would send me away again. However, that was not to be._

 

“Is it a bad time?” Miss Lister asked haltingly, at loathe to leave so soon.

 

“No, no of course not!” the dandelion burst, getting up. “I’m sorry I haven’t been more welcoming. So good to see you! I’m….just waiting for a telephone call. Come in! Come in!”

 

Ann chivied her guest inside and shut the door firmly.

 

With one of her smoothest moves, Anne produced the roses from behind her back with a flourish.

 

“For you, Ann,” she said.

 

The dandelion’s eyes lit up like bright little fairy lights.

 

“These are…Anne, they’re so _pretty!”_ she exclaimed.

 

“So are you,” Miss Lister said silkily.

 

The dandelion buried her nose in the roses.

 

“Goodness!” she breathed with a look of rapture on her face that Miss Lister’s powerful imagination immediately took to other places. “And they smell wonderful!”

 

Miss Lister gave a low chuckle.

 

“So do you.”

 

“Roses in January, Miss Lister!” Ann laughed, a little pink from the compliment. “They must have cost you a fortune!”

 

“Worth every penny,” Miss Lister said with a softness that made Ann want to sigh.

 

And there it was again, that hopelessly heavy look. It was back on Miss Lister’s face. 

 

It was simultaneously sleepy and hungry and for some reason made Ann want to-

 

“Please take a seat!” the dandelion fussed. “Goodness, where are my manners? Can I get you anything?”

 

_Just_ **_yourself_ ** _would be quite sufficient, Miss Walker…if you could lead the way to your bedroom…_

 

“Tea would be wonderful, thank you,” Miss Lister said comfortably, eyeing her hostess very intently.

 

James, who had anticipated the moment, arrived with some tea and some expensive chocolates which he had bought for Miss Lister without question after his employer had assigned him the task.

 

She seemed rather taken with this Miss Lister character…

 

One might even think…

 

“Thank you, James,” Miss Walker said as he retreated hastily, leaving her to study the handsome guest on the seat next to her as the older women launched into conversation.

 

Miss Lister was sitting closer and closer, the dandelion didn’t fail to notice. With every word she seemed to almost swell in size, to take up more and more of Ann’s vision and the air in her lungs.

 

However, the pull of intellectual gravity that attracted all creatures with a brain to Miss Lister didn’t keep Ann from shooting fraught looks to the telephone now and again.

 

It was coming. It was coming.

 

Annoyingly, though Miss Lister was saying something very interesting, Ann just couldn’t manage to listen.

 

She was waiting for the telephone to ring.

 

When it finally _did_ ring, she nearly jumped out of her skin.

 

“I’ll give you some privacy,” Anne said, retreating with her disappointment to the next room to sulk - the ghostly reminders of the mystery suitor in her mind as she imagined Ann’s caller.

 

However, disappointment soon became annoyance, then exasperation, then a hopelessly angry kind of protectiveness. 

 

She could hear Ann’s voice growing more and more frantic and, from her side of the conversation, Miss Lister was not hard-pushed to figure out its subject.

 

Anne sighed tightly and rubbed her forehead with her fingers.

 

“But _Peter,”_ the dandelion huffed weakly. “See, Aunt…yes…no…but I _have_ the money, I just can’t wire it too you! I’m…well maybe _you_ could pay, and I could pay you _after_ the investment…but…”

 

Anne could hear the shuffling of Ann’s little slippers as she hopped anxiously from one foot to another.

 

“Yes,” she continued, with a note of hysteria in her voice. “I _know._ But the accountant says it’s rather a _lot_ for one investment and perhaps…No I…No I don’t _hate_ you, Peter! I don't think _that!_ I just wonder if the money…It’s rather a _lot,_ you see and…No, I understand you need it! I just didn’t think you’d need it so _soon…_ and all at once, and on top of what your mother has asked for and-”

 

Ann gave a surprised squark as the telephone was removed from her trembling hands.

 

“Hello, this is Miss Walker’s lawyer,” Anne snapped. “And if _any_ of you approach her for money ever again, Miss Walker will be taking legal action against you, is that clear?”

 

Ann listened to her cousin grow angry on the other side of the line.

 

“That is between my client and myself, thank you,” Miss Lister continued with perfect impertinence.

 

Ann trembled as she heard a bad expletive hurled across the Atlantic, aimed at poor Miss Lister.

 

“Charming,” Anne said dryly and put the phone down.

 

“Why did you do that?” Ann squeaked.

 

“Because I care about you,” Miss Lister answered. “And your wellbeing.”

 

“But…but…”

 

“These aunts and uncles and cousins protect you from gold diggers out in the world but not those in your own family!” Miss Lister burst exasperatedly.

 

“But…”

 

“They are making you _ill!”_ Anne spluttered. “These people!”

 

“But you see, my cousin needs the money for…for investment and such,” Ann argued desperately.

 

Anne raised an eyebrow.

 

“Yes! _Yes,_ I know it’s a lot of money!” Miss Walker continued, breathless with the promise of tears.

 

“Damn right!” Miss Lister laughed bitterly, sweeping a lap of the room to vent her feelings.

 

Ann flopped down on her sofa.

 

“My accountant says I must stop,” she whispered. “…Because, well, since I don’t have a…I’m not married yet.”

 

The dandelion fiddled with her skirt which Miss Lister had noticed was a habit of hers and, what’s more, rather though she should be doing it instead. Putting her hand under Miss Walker’s skirt and keeping gong…

 

“He said I shouldn’t give people so much money and I need to start investing,” the dandelion confided to her peculiar friend. “But I barely know what that means.”

 

She cast her teary eyes to the ceiling hopelessly.

 

“And then I told my cousin, Peter,” Ann sniffled. “Who said he would invest it _for_ me, which would mean that I had invested, like the accountant _asked,_ but I had given away the money like he said _not_ to!”

 

Miss Walker felt a hand tip her chin and then she was looking into a very deep pair of dark eyes.

 

Oh _how_ she wanted to…to…

 

“Luckily for you,” Anne said, while a grin broke the surface of her frown as she tapped little Ann playfully on the nose. “You have _me.”_

 

Did she? Did she really have somebody as special as Miss Lister? All to her very own? It was too good to be true.

 

“Oh Ann, don’t cry! Here…” Miss Lister laughed kindly, gently passing the dandelion a handkerchief as the emotion became to much.

 

Ann buried her face in Miss Lister’s smell as the article herself was doing a great deal of scheming.

 

“You say you need to make investment?” she asked the young woman, rubbing her soothingly on the back.

 

Ann’s head bobbed dolefully.

 

“Ever thought about oil?”

 

And so it was with the same spring in her step that several hours later Anne returned to her hotel to make a telephone call.

 

“Good news, gentlemen,” Anne said into the receiver. “We have our new expansion…”

 

 

 

***

 

 

 

“They’re such beautiful trees - even without the leaves on,” Ann said, gesturing to the park’s wintery guardians. “Though…not quite as pretty as the flowers you got me.”

 

Miss Lister grinned as she walked beside Ann through the new carpet of January snow upon the city.

 

Since Ann’s investment in the company, Miss Lister had been busy making plans for expansion into their new oil field and was surprised how much she had missed Miss Walker’s halting conversation for those few days and was thrilled to see her again.

 

“I’m sure a flower of yours would have them pale in comparison,” Miss Lister murmured with her best coquettish half-smile.

 

Miss Walker giggled happily, though Miss Lister suspected that she hadn’t understood to what the older, and more experienced woman, was referring.

 

Anne had to blink the image of Ann’s blooming flower out of her mind to avoid ploughing staring into a snowdrift.

 

The cold didn’t bother Anne so much as long as she could complain about it but Miss Walker was wrapped up like a Siberian princess in furs and a rather not-so-fashionable wooly hat which was a little too big and kept falling over her ears.

 

“So…you were saying,” Ann began in the voice that meant she was tacking an _issue_ as she fought with the blasted hat. “Um…”

 

The dandelion glanced around nervously for potential eavesdroppers.

 

“Yes?” Miss Lister wondered and looked so dashing in her bowler had that for a moment Miss Walker lost her train of thought.

 

But only for a moment. Her beauty quickly reminded Ann of the issue at hand.

 

“You were saying…last week,” the dandelion attempted again. “That you…that I wasn’t ill because you had the same sort of…”

 

Ann windmilled with her hands trying to find the right word.

 

“…Thing, maybe…”

 

“Yes, indeed,” Miss Lister nodded, smiling fondly as the hat made another attempt to cover Ann’s eyes. “Go on.”

 

“Well I…just wanted to thank you,” Ann said seriously. “Because the voices, the spirits…aren’t so cross with me now.”

 

“Oh really?” Anne said

 

“Yes, and physically I’ve been feeling much better,” Miss Walker told her excitedly. “I think it’s something to do with…”

 

“With?” Miss Lister prompted.

 

“Well…knowing it’s not just me,” Ann admitted. “And…well, if it _were_ just me…I would be a bit worried God might be cross, you see?”

 

“I do see,” Miss Lister said sympathetically.

 

“But if it’s more of us it we ought to be alright, oughtn’t we?” Ann said, looking hopefully to Miss Lister for confirmation from the woman she had grown quickly to implicitly trust.

 

Miss Lister nodded with a smile.

 

“I expect so, Miss Lister,” she chuckled. “We’re not all a bad sort, really.”

 

“Hmmm,” Miss Walker agreed, though thoughtfully. “And…what does it mean, really? I mean what are the implications of my…”

 

“Disposition?” Anne suggested delicately.

 

“Yes, of that.”

 

“Well…I take it you wouldn’t marry,” she said reasonably, employing some of the hand gestures she often used while talking. “You might find people talk, and if you’re open about it, or not steadfastly covert, should I say, you might find the world rather unforgiving. But, with the right friends, I think you shouldn’t suffer for it.”

 

Ann watched transfixed as the other woman gave her speech. She often thought that Miss Lister’s hands spoke an extra language all of their own. She found them rather fascinating.

 

“…But you are wealthy enough that that shouldn’t be a problem,” she finished.

 

“Oh,” Miss Walker said, feeling deflated all of a sudden. “So…that’s it then? I shan’t marry and…”

 

“And…” Miss Lister probed, looping her arm around Miss Walker’s shoulders jauntily.

 

“I’m just worried that I might be lonely, you see,” Ann said with a sigh. “To…never marry. For it always to be just _me.”_

 

“You needn't be lonely, Ann!” Miss Lister burst with an incredulous chuckle, realising that sheltered Miss Walker had not made the logical leap that she herself had at a rather early age. “Good heavens! What do you think we all do? Become nuns?”

 

“Well,” the dandelion began, pained. “I don’t think they’d let you _be_ a nun if-”

 

 _“No,_ Ann!” Miss Lister hissed, grinning with the enormity of the gift she was about to give Miss Walker. “We who prefer the fairer sex and are women ourselves…have relationships _with each other!”_

 

Miss Walker stopped dead.

 

“You mean…” she stuttered as her freckled cheeks coloured. “You _mean…”_

 

Miss Lister gave Ann a suggestive look that almost wilted the poor dandelion to the floor.

 

“Yes,” she said.

 

Ann’s forehead furrowed and she mouthed her thoughts, though Miss Lister couldn’t make them out. She was thinking…thinking…

 

“Anne, we have to go back to my house,” the dandelion decided suddenly, eyes snapping up with a focus Anne hadn’t seen in them before.

 

“Why?” Miss Lister wondered. “Have you forgotten something?”

 

“No!” Ann said impatiently. “I just…there’s something I have to tell you but…”

 

Ann looked around at the milling pedestrians.

 

“Just not here,” she hissed.

 

Anne raised an eyebrow and Miss Walker’s whole body sang.

 

“Really, Miss Walker?” she whispered with exaggerated breathiness. “And what could be so secret that you would have to whisk me away?”

 

“Something secret and _urgent,_ Miss Lister!” Ann laughed and grabbed Miss Lister’s eager arm. “For goodness'  _sake!_ Come on!”

 

The two of them ran back around the corner to Ann’s home, giggling like schoolgirls.

 

“James! We’re having an emergency session!” Ann said, pulling of her coat and scarf as she closed her front door. “Please keep everyone out! It’s confidential.”

 

“Right-o. Will do, Miss Walker,” James said, safely retreating to the other end of the dwelling.

 

Then, while Miss Lister watched, amused, Ann almost _ran_ into the sitting room.

 

“Sit, sit!” Ann flapped as she closed the door behind her guest.

 

“Why the sudden eagerness?” Miss Lister wondered, throwing herself carelessly down onto the sofa with an attractive smirk.

 

“Well…”

 

Now, with Miss Lister looking right at her with her hawk-like precision and focus, Miss Walker’s fabulous idea didn’t sound quite so feasible.

 

“I…wondered…um…” Miss Walker whispered, hands writhing in her lap. “If we might…I mean if you would be willing…”

 

She blushed at the fool she was making of herself. Of course Anne didn’t want…what she wanted.

 

“Gosh, I’m sorry,” a very pink Miss Walker laughed sheepishly. “I don’t know what I was thin-”

 

“Yes, of _course_ I’ll kiss you, Ann,” Miss Lister interrupted seriously. 

 

“What?” Ann spluttered. “How…why did you say that?”

 

Anne gave the dandelion a raised eyebrow.

 

“Ann, _really?”_

 

She laughed. 

 

“You’ve forgotten our conversation already?” she chuckled kindly. “When you admitting to thinking about me? Reading between the lines, those thoughts weren’t the sort to stem from common friendship.”

 

“You’ll really do it?” Ann breathed, eyes round as saucers.

 

“Yes,” Miss Lister told her, _her_ eyes molten onyx in their intensity.

 

“Why?” the dandelion wondered.

 

At this, Miss Lister laughed in earnest.

 

“Miss Walker, for crying out loud!” she cried, leaping from her place beside Ann to kneel on the floor in front of her. “Why do you think I’m here all the time?”

 

“A lot of people spend time with me because I’m very rich,” Ann whispered with a sad shrug.

 

Miss Lister rolled her eyes theatrically.

 

“I spend time with you, Ann,” she told the dandelion. “Because I really _like_ you!”

 

“You do?” Miss Walker asked sounding very young and rather teary.

 

“Yes!”

 

“Are you _sure?”_ Ann said shakily as a stray tear ran down her cheek.

 

 _“Yes!”_ Miss Lister laughed wiping the tear away with her thumb.

 

“Oh…”

 

The dandelion’s eyes became wider and rather dreamy as Anne leant closer and closer and closer until she could feel the older woman’s body heat.

 

“Your eyes,” Miss Lister murmured while her own burned. “They’re like the sky over Prague.”

 

“Is it lovely in Prague?” Ann whispered.

 

“Oh yes, beautiful,” Miss Lister said, forming her words so quietly and so carefully that the dandelion leaned closer to listen. “You’re very beautiful, Ann.”

 

“Really?” Ann said with the merest of breaths, unused to being quite so _close_ to another person.

 

“Would I lie to you, my darling?” Anne drawled in a syrupy voice while her hands dragged along Ann’s thighs and onto her waist, making Miss Walker’s back arch a little in reflexive response.

 

“Am I your _darling?”_ Ann all but choked as Miss Lister’s thumbs made little circles on her tummy which really oughtn’t to be allowed, Ann thought, the way her mind was fogging because of them.

 

“Since I first saw you on the boat,” Anne admitted roughly. “…And there you were so _radiant…”_

 

She gave a shuddery breath which Ann couldn’t help but mimic with the warm heaviness growing in the pit of her stomach.

 

“Yes, you are,” Anne whispered, right against the dandelion’s ear (and it may as well have between her legs for all the trouble it caused). “…And I’ve been counting the _minutes_ until you were ready to hear that.”

 

The thud of the inevitable was coursing thought Miss Walker’s veins like a drummer on a battleship.

 

“Anne…please…please will you kiss me?” she breathed.

 

Miss Lister drew away - just enough to look into Ann’s eyes.

 

“Miss Walker,” she said with a moan in her voice. “There is _nothing_ I’d like more…”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick one.
> 
> Now, I don't know how much $US 500 really was in 1919, and whether that would be the value of a painting.
> 
> (Seriously, that is impossible to google - values of things in 1919 dollars. Don't even bother.)
> 
> Anyway, so yeah.
> 
> Just take it as 'a hell of a lot of money for a painting' and focus on the kiss instead.
> 
> Wait! Did I just reveal that!
> 
> (Heh, heh heh!)
> 
> Enjoy the chapter.

Anne moved closer slowly... _slowly_ and brushed Miss Walker’s plump bottom lip with her own. 

 

The young woman let out a little breath which tickled Miss Lister’s face as Ann felt the shot of passion hit her.

 

For the first time in her twenty-nine years, Miss Walker felt _genuine_ passion.

 

As a result, Miss Walker tipped her head willingly towards Anne’s.

 

The young woman felt a surge of energy rush through her as Miss Lister pressed her lips to her own and moved her intelligent hands to encircle Ann's slender waist with a possessiveness that they both enjoyed to a scandalous degree.

 

Anne withdrew for a moment, letting the tension fill the air and enjoying the frankly _started_ look on the dandelion’s face. Then, teasingly, she dipped her head back in and captured Ann’s soft lips a second time.

 

She heard the younger woman give an involuntary little gasp, which turned into something much deeper as, not letting her lips leave Ann’s for a moment, Miss Lister moved her hands down to cup the perfect little bottom she had been admiring covertly for some while now.

 

She squeezed.

 

_G-goodness me!_

 

_Oh God... **F**_ **_**u** ck!_ **

 

Fuelled with lust, Anne tipped her precious love backwards flat on the sofa and adopted her favoured and dominant position above the other woman.

 

Looking up at her, little Miss Walker gave Anne a pleading, almost needy look and knotted her hands resolutely in the older women's skirt.

 

Grinning, Miss Lister bent her head down to her prize.

 

This kiss was _achy...slow..._ and so utterly, _utterly_ forbidden.

 

Then, to an unspoken cue that Miss Walker hadn’t picked up on, Miss Lister began to move her lips more enthusiastically, causing an anaesthetic throb of arousal to hit Miss Walker’s bloodstream in earnest.

 

A beautiful feeling gathered between her legs like a thundercloud - all heat and pressure and electricity.

 

Miss Lister pulled away, only to sweep her lips to Ann’s jawline where she pulled the skin teasingly with her mouth.

 

 _“Ann,”_ she whispered throatily, sounding so thoroughly and so _desperately_ risqué that the dandelion’s breath hitched in her aching chest.

 

But, this reminded Ann of something: this was Miss _Lister_ she was kissing, the real-life, _actual_ Miss Lister, not her dream counterpart who suddenly seemed comparatively dreary.

 

Miss Lister who didn’t deserve to be wasting such lovely, shivery kisses on someone as useless as Ann.

 

At this thought, the thundercloud dissipated somewhat.

 

Anne felt Miss Walker stiffen moments before she pulled away.

 

“Ann…Ann, darling, what is it?” Miss Lister asked, concerned.

 

The dandelion dropped her head, as if in shame, and Anne worried that she might be having second thoughts.

 

“Ann…Ann what is the matter?” she asked again, more urgently.

 

“I…I don’t deserve you,” the younger woman whispered brokenly.

 

“What?” Miss Lister breathed, forehead crumpling. “Oh Ann, _no.”_

 

At those kind words, the dandelion started to cry prettily into Miss Lister’s stern shoulder.

 

“Why ever would you say that?” Anne murmured gently as she rocked herself and Miss Walker back and fourth gently.

 

“You’re so c-clever and interesting,” Ann wept. “And I’m just…so _boring_ and…I’m sure there are other people you’d rather be doing this with!”

 

“Ann, even if you _were_ boring,” Miss Lister said with her assured calm. “That’s not the way this works. I’m very fond of you, Ann. You _are_ clever and interesting. Not to mention very very pretty…”

 

Miss Lister felt Miss Walker’s head shake a ‘no’.

 

“You are kind,” the older woman continued breathlessly, pulling back to look in to Ann’s doe-eyes. “And gentle and _rich…”_

 

She traced Miss Walker’s lips with her thumb.

 

“With inspiration. And ideas. And I feel lucky to have you,” she whispered indulgently.

 

“You can’t mean it,” Ann said harshly, pulling away.

 

“I tend to mean things I say,” Miss Lister said with a careful chuckle. “Who has made you feel you aren’t worth my attention?”

 

“Well…P-Peter, my cousin,” Miss Walker said shakily with another batch of tears threatening. “S-said I didn’t deserve all the money I inherited when my parents and my brother died and-”

 

“Well, perhaps Peter can have his whole close family die, then,” Miss Lister snapped, thinking about telephoning the man back for an even more in-depth conversation about his conduct towards his lovely cousin.

 

Ann gasped.

 

“Sorry that was crass,” Miss Lister apologised, realising that was so. “But consider what you have compensation, God’s compensation.”

 

“I’ve…never thought about it like that,” Miss Walker mused.

 

_But think, Miss Walker may have both money **and** companionship one day soon…_

 

“But I could never earn money by myself, you see!” the dandelion continued frantically. “And…and I need a husband to take care of me!…And…and I don’t have any skills or talent-”

 

“No _talent,_ Miss Walker?” Anne repeated incredulously, as she allowed her eyes to wander round the room and land on several of the dandelion’s rather good artworks.

 

With a gasp of shock, Miss Walker felt emptiness between her fingertips as Miss Lister darted over to one of the framed paintings.

 

“May I take this?” she asked, gesturing to one of Ann’s rather more abstract works.

 

“If you even want it,” Ann sniffled, wiping her nose in a rather unladylike way. “It’s not worth anything anyway!”

 

A single tear moseyed its way down her cheek in a rather film-starry fashion which distracted Miss Lister somewhat before Ann continued.

 

 _“I’m_ not worth anything!” she choked.

 

Miss Lister closed her eyes and savoured the new memory of Ann’s silken lips.

 

“I know that’s not true, Miss Walker,” she said firmly.

 

She gestured to the painting she now held.

 

“How long did this take you?” Anne wondered aloud. “Conception to finished piece?”

 

Ann shrugged.

 

“Two days in all, maybe,” she whispered.

 

“Only _two?”_ Miss Lister asked, surprised by the quality of the work in such a short time.

 

“I know,” Ann sighed, agitatedly rising to her feet and wringing her perfect little hands. “I know it’s rushed but-”

 

“On the contrary, Miss Walker,” Miss Lister beamed. “I find myself _nearly_ as fond of it as I am of _you._ Which is an awful lot, if you were wondering.”

 

“Really?” Ann asked pleadingly.

 

“Really,” Miss Lister told her with one of her heart-flutteringly beady-eyed smiles.

 

She took both of Ann’s artist’s hands.

 

“Now, for the next week or so I’ll be out of the city. In Chicago on business,” Miss Lister told Ann with a sigh in her voice. _“God,_ a trip with Marshall and Elton for company.”

 

She chuckled darkly to herself.

 

“Good Lord that’s a repulsive thought,” she huffed. “But when I get back, I _promise_ you will have changed your mind about your worth.”

 

“Anne, you know as soon as you leave…” Ann said, as quiet as a mouse. “…Always when you leave I just feel…”

 

The dandelion shuddered

 

“Like everything’s falling apart!” she hissed desperately, tears twinkling like jewels in her eyelashes.

 

“Well it isn’t,” Anne said with finality, eyeing Miss Walker as she stroked her hand. “And I’ll be back before you know it.”

 

Then, with a parting kiss on the forehead and a gust of purpose, Anne left.

 

However, Miss Lister didn’t go directly to her hotel to pack, rather she caught a cab to the other side of town.

 

“This is a work by friend of mine, Andrew Walker,” she told the gallery’s manager after she had made her journey across the city. “I was wondering if you knew round about how much a collector might pay for it?”

 

“Hmmmm,” the man said, lifting a monocle to his eye.

 

“It’s a nice piece,” he said interestedly. _“Very_ nice.”

 

“Yes,” Anne agreed impatiently (any idiot could see it was _nice)._ “But what’s it _worth?”_

 

The man raised his bushy white eyebrows.

 

“Well…to the right buyer…” he said before leaning in to mutter the amount to his visitor without the rest of the gallery hearing.

 

“That much?” Anne asked, surprised despite herself.

 

“We would estimate,” the man said loftily. “Based on what the enthusiasts are prepared to bid each other up to.”

 

“Well… _goodness,”_ Miss Lister said, with her most dangerously enrapturing smile stretching across her face. “I didn’t realise.”

 

“If we could keep this overnight,” the man continued. “We could show it to some of our private collectors - see what they think of it.”

 

“Yes, Rothschild likes that sort of thing,” nodded an associate as he passed, his eyes widening with the same degree of greed as his boss. “He needs paintings for the new home he’s building. I’ll let him know there’s a piece he might be interested in.”

 

“By all means!” Anne grinned, seeing rather than the clichéd dollar bill before her eyes, Miss Walker’s perfect happy smile.

 

Once arrangements had been made, Miss Lister donned, once again, her bowler hat and prepared to dash back out into the snow which posed little obstacle to the woman considering the energy with which she walked.

 

“He’s good, your Mr Walker,” Mr Arrow-Smith, the gallery owner, said as the eccentric woman paused at the door, ready to fling herself into the blizzard.

 

“The best,” Miss Lister smiled, feeling a warmth in her belly despite the temperature on the porch.

 

“Tell me are you two… _good_ friends?” Arrow-Smith asked, his implication clear.

 

“Yes,” Anne smirked. “But not in the way you think.”

 

And, with that, the woman vanished like an impatient spectre into the New York evening.

 

 

***

 

 

“A package for you, ma’am,” James said gently to Ann who had retreated to her nest in the corner of the sitting room after having finally been persuaded to leave her bed.

 

Miss Walker’s aches and pains had returned with a passion, and on top of that, Miss Lister was _not there,_ and had left the city on a _train,_ no less!

 

Oh,  _dreadful_ accidents could happen to trains in heavy snow!

 

Besides the fact that Miss Lister could well meet a grizzly end, like Ann’s poor brother in Naples, the woman’s absence meant that Miss Walker was thinking with her head, rather than her heart and, as many well knew, her head wasn’t always very well.

 

What had she _done?_ What had _they_ done?

 

Kissing another woman! _Kissing_ her! For _passion!_

 

Ann buried her face, burning with shame, in her knees. 

 

Surely God couldn’t forgive something so…so… _obscene._

 

She gave a sniff and ignored the package. Damned women needn’t bother opening their parcels.

 

However, as the afternoon trickled by, the parcel became somehow impossible to ignore, though even the thought of _thinking_ about opening it became frightening.

 

Even James’ quiet rap on the door made Ann seize up in terror.

 

“Miss Walker, would you like any tea?” he asked gently. “Anything to eat?”

 

“No thank you, James,” came her whispered reply.

 

“In that case, a note for you,” James said, passing the dandelion the envelope. “From Miss Lister.”

 

Miss Lister!

 

Lethargy forgotten, Ann heaved herself to her feet and opened the note.

 

 

_I know what you’re like, Miss Walker!_

 

_Open the parcel - it doesn’t bite!_

 

_A.L._

 

 

Now excited, Ann dashed over to the table where the object sat, quite innocently, dressed in its brown paper.

 

Whatever could it be?

 

She fumbled with the wrappings.

 

It’s…it’s…

 

Oh!

 

_Oh…_

 

But…

 

The dandelion sagged with sadness.

 

Miss Lister had…s-sent back her painting! Goodness! What did it all mean? She must have hated it! _Hated_ it!

 

However, the note taped to the glass of the frame said otherwise.

 

 _Congratulations Miss Walker,_ Miss Lister’s even script read. _This is what two days of your time is worth to the New York contemporary art market._

 

_You should be very proud._

 

_Yours in awe, and with much affection,_

 

_Anne_

 

_(P.S. Marshall and Elton are driving me round the bend! I cannot wait to return to some decent company!)_

 

With a shaking hand, and not quite believing her eyes, Ann opened the more official-looking letter.

 

 _Dear A. Walker,_ it began.

 

_Based upon our experience with contemporary art, we estimate your work to be valued at around $US 500 at auction should you wish to sell._

 

_Alternatively, several of our clients have shown an interest in buying this piece from you privately, including a Mr Rothschild who is contactable through our gallery should you wish to discuss terms of sale with his assistants._

 

_You show great promise and, should you wish to book exhibition space, we would be happy to accommodate you._

 

_Yours sincerely,_

 

_Chairman of the Roosevelt Gallery._

 

_Christopher Arrow-Smith._

 

After tracing her finger over the loopy signature on the bottom of the page, for the first time in her life, Ann Walker cried with _joy._

 

 

***

 

 

“So, what did you think of Chicago?” drawled the younger man as he plonked himself down uninvited at Miss Lister’s table in the train’s dining car.

 

“It’s was alright,” Anne shrugged, taking another sip of her drink and looking pointedly at her newspaper.

 

“ _‘Alright_?” her fellow director scoffed with a smirk. “I expected a little better from you, Miss Lister.”

 

With this ridiculous remark, Anne lost her temper.

 

“How was Chicago?” Miss Lister repeated incredulously. “What did you _expect_ me to say? It’s another city not the _moon,_ Elton!”

 

She rolled her eyes.

 

“Good _Lord_ you’re a _bore,”_ she sneered and turned to glower out of the dark train windows.

 

Mr Elton merely grinned and got more comfortable in his seat.

 

“So…your investor,” the man began again. “This….Miss Walker we’ve heard so much about. Are you two…good friends?”

 

“We’re friends, yes,” Miss Lister said tautly. “Unlike you and I. Surely there’s someone else you could go and bother?”

 

“You see her an awful lot…” Elton remarked with an inquisitively arched eyebrow, ignoring his dismissal.

 

“As you’d imagine!” Anne replied impatiently. “She’s just invested an awful lot in our venture! I have to keep her informed.”

 

“Yeah…about that…” frowned the young man.

 

He leaned forward in his seat.

 

“You see…I’m just….I’m just trying to figure out _why_ she’d do that…for a friend,” Elton said in his hopelessly charming way. “Even a _good_ friend, the amount of money she invested.”

 

“Well why don’t you ask _her?”_ Anne said sweetly before her expression soured. “Except you’ll never meet her because you’re too scruffy for polite society.”

 

Elton sucked in a gleeful breath between his even teeth.

 

“You English snobs!” he chuckled. “Know everything about empires but nothing about money.”

 

“I beg to differ,” Miss Lister smirked.

 

“Yes…I was wondering why you’ve suddenly started drinking expensive scotch,” Elton said with another raised eyebrow.

 

“Let’s just say I put some of Miss Walker’s loan into the Stock market…” Anne said casually.

 

“So you’re in Speculation now?” Elton asked, surprised. “That’s a dangerous game.”

 

“Well, we’re not alive if we’re not taking the odd risk…” Miss Lister commented wryly.

 

“And…your risk paid off?” Elton wondered.

 

“As you say…” Miss Lister whispered. “I’m drinking the expensive scotch.”

 

Mr Handsome threw his head back and laughed merrily showing his perfectly while teeth against his tanned skin.

 

“You _are_ on the ball, Miss Lister,” he chortled.

 

“One of us needs to be,” she retorted, but with a smile.

 

“In that case,” Elton said. “I think you can afford to buy me a drink.”

 

Miss Lister rolled her eyes, but did comply with his request.

 

“One for my friend here,” Miss Lister said carelessly to a passing waiter.

 

“So I _am_ your friend now?” Elton smirked. 

 

Miss Lister rolled her eyes with even _greater_ theatrical magnificence, but fairly fondly.

 

“To the company,” she said, raising her glass in a toast as Elton’s drink arrived.

 

“To you and your Miss Walker,” handsome Mr Elton replied, mirroring the motion but with a knowing look in his eye that Miss Lister wasn’t at all happy with.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope everyone noticed that it was 'Andrew Walker's' paining that was valued!
> 
> The sad truth (as you well know) is that even today women at are a disadvantage in the arts markets (see female authors publishing under male names!)
> 
> And this does show that even though Anne despises the sexist system, she is more than happy to manipulate it to her own advantage!
> 
> Hope you liked the chapter!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sex.
> 
> Sex.
> 
> Sex.
> 
> Not much plot in this one, I'm afraid...
> 
> Oh! But a little bit of plot! I've just remembered!
> 
> Keep eyes peeled, folks!

“Miss Walker!” Miss Lister called brightly, closing the door to Ann’s sitting room behind her. “I’ve brought you back a pres-”

 

The stout Miss Lister was almost barrelled over backwards be the force of the dandelion’s impact, and shocked as it pressed a violently affectionate kiss to her lips.

 

“Anne!” the younger woman gasped when she finally pulled away. “The painting! The _painting!”_

 

 _“Your_ painting, Ann!” Miss Lister corrected her, grinning manically as she got caught up in the excitement. “You clever thing!”

 

“My goodness!” Miss Walker burst, seizing Miss Lister’s face between her palms.

 

She kissed her again fiercely.

 

“You…are…just…wonderful…Miss Lister!” the dandelion declared between kisses, eyes shining brightly.

 

Anne was about to make some clever retort and hand over the diamond broach she had bought Miss Walker from Chicago but then, looking into the younger woman’s eyes, the gift began to seem barely adequate in the face of the hunger there.

 

Anne understood exactly what Miss Walker wanted, and it was not jewellery.

 

Dumping the expensive annoyance carelessly on the nearest surface, Anne eagerly seized her love by the waist, spun her around and backed her a little roughly against the wall in one practiced movement.

 

Miss Walker gave a gasp of surprise as she found herself sandwiched against the hard surface and Miss Lister, who may have been just as unyielding, as she kissed up Ann’s jaw…then down her neck…across the neckline of her dress…

 

Anne kissed down Miss Walker’s bodice, dragging her hands in a matching path down her back until she was on her knees, gripping Miss Walker’s bottom and panting into the fabric of the dandelion’s lower stomach, heating the area with her breath.

 

In fact, Miss Lister was making _all_ of Miss Walker a little warm.

 

Actually _rather_ warm, now, as she felt the reverent nudge of Miss Lister’s head against her tummy and became sure her legs were turning to jelly.

 

Miss Lister was breathing heavily. She could feel Ann quivering below her hands and, in response, squeezed her hands tighter around where they had latched onto her precious love.

 

As she did so, Miss Lister gently bit Miss Walker's dress, just below the belly-button.

 

“Oh, Anne _no,”_ Miss Walker moaned. “B-but _yes._ Please, I-”

 

“What, Ann?” Miss Lister breathed, raising herself up to look Miss Walker dead in the eyes.

 

“What do you want?” she asked, eyes as deep as onyx.

 

“I…don’t think I know,” Miss Walker admitted, though lacing her fingers together at the nape of Miss Lister’s neck.

 

“Would you like me to show you?” Miss Lister whispered in a voice that would have melted granite into a quivering little puddle.

 

Miss Walker gave no response, rather concentrated on feeding sufficient air in and out of her aching lungs before Miss Lister’s powerful sexuality actually _suffocated_ her now that it had been set free.

 

Anne took Miss Walker’s perfect little artist’s hands from around her neck and held them in her own reassuringly.

 

“Miss Walker, we are worthy of one another, are we not?” she whispered smiling dreamily, swaying almost childishly on the spot.

 

Miss Walker bit her lip nervously, but then something in Anne’s expression cleared her mind of doubt.

 

“Miss Lister,” she said hollowly, rather as if she were dreaming. “Would you like to go upstairs?”

 

 

***

 

 

She wasn’t a dandelion clock at all, Anne had had it all wrong. 

 

Really, Miss Walker was a perfect little rose.

 

Miss Lister artfully shed petal after petal until her love lay trembling amongst the expensive silk bedclothes in only her underthings, pink and panting, limbs splayed out in an accidentally arousing position - the one in which they had landed after she had leapt eagerly onto her bed.

 

Her curls had come a little loose from their normal neat style and Miss Lister was almost overcome with lust and fondness when Ann swept them away from her face when they started to tickle.

 

The rest of Miss Walker was as slender as Miss Lister had (at length) imagined but, as an added treasure, she had beautiful dancer’s feet.

 

She had a symmetrical pair of neat little breasts that were heaving with the effort of maintaining eye-contact with Miss Lister whose face betrayed longing of the most shocking sort.

 

After letting herself savour the rush of pleasure and power that came with spreading her legs either side of Miss Walker to tower above her, Anne smiled lovingly and dipped her head to let her teeth graze one of the tight little nipples she could see through Miss Walker’s brassiere.

 

The rose _moaned._

 

The sound went straight between Anne’s legs.

 

“You liked that?” she asked with a deep chuckle which had exactly the same effect upon Miss Walker, merely to hear the rose’s voice rather than her answer which was abundantly clear.

 

The rose frowned, as if she were in pain, and then Miss Lister felt Ann’s core nudge her own as, with a sly smile, the older women repeated the action and Miss Walker arched upwards reflexively.

 

“Anne! Yes!” Miss Walker breathed, digging her head backwards into her pillows, as the need in her body threatened to burn her to a crisp. “Keep on…more…and-”

 

Miss Walker gave a whimper and her whole body jerked as Ann stroked a painfully sensitive part of her upper thigh.

 

When it came, Miss Lister absorbed the second whimper into her own mouth with a deep kiss, feeling Miss Walker studiously try to replicate the movements that Anne was making with her mouth and tongue.

 

Then, satisfied that the rose sort of had the knack of the thing, Anne swept her hand down Ann’s leg.

 

“Are you…ready, my love?” she breathed horsely.

 

Ready for what? Ann would have asked, but she did know, from the urgency between her legs, now intense to the point of pain, where Miss Lister’s attentions would surely be travelling next.

 

By instinct, Miss Walker began to thrust herself off the bed, wanting, _needing_ something.

 

“Anne,” she whispered when, after a few moments of Miss Lister’s hungry look scouring her body, that _something_ had not yet arrived. “I feel so…”

 

“Apprehensive?” Anne asked with a thoughtfulness her own throbbing centre didn’t quite recommend she extend.

 

“Heavy,” Ann winced, feeling the tight arousal claw it’s way up inside her. “And tight and…”

 

Ann frowned as she felt a rush of wetness trickle it’s way out of her, and slick itself eagerly along her folds.

 

_“Wet.”_

 

Anne’s eyebrows flew upwards at the boldness she hadn’t expected from her timid friend.

 

“Miss Lister, I think you might have to touch me now!” Ann said urgently, grabbing Miss Lister’s bony wrist, afraid that Anne didn't quite understand how _desperate_ she was, as if she would surely _die_ if Miss Lister didn’t…

 

What _would_ she do?

 

Miss Lister dipped her head to kiss Ann, as she did, artfully sweeping her hand down to where it longed to settle, where it had _been_ longing to settle since they first met, and, though she didn’t realise it at the time, where Miss Walker wanted to _have_ it settle.

 

Ah, I see.

 

_…Oh **Gosh!…**_

 

**_…Mary Mother of God!…_ **

 

Miss Walker’s hips jerked upwards with the unexpected sear of pleasure that Miss Lister’s fingers had just given her.

 

It was a great rushing, dragging sensation like a wave across a beach but twinkling through her whole little body like little bright sparks.

 

With each little movement, the heat grew and grew, until the backs of Ann’s thighs were burning and her nipples stung with the sensation of the fabric brushing over them as the two lovers moved with one another.

 

As if reading the rose’s mind, Miss Lister turned her head from the crook of Ann’s neck and brought her wet mouth down on one of the lucky mounds, teasing it with her tongue.

 

“Anne,” Miss Walker breathed warily, suddenly a little overwhelmed.

 

“Shhhh,” Anne whispered, adjusting her small, calculated touches to be more soothing then stinging and bringing her head up to Ann’s so their clammy foreheads were touching. “Here, my love.”

 

Ann was shocked at the pull of pleasure within her at the sound of Anne’s voice and the use of the endearment.

 

The rose was frankly _more_ shocked when Miss Lister took both of her willowy bare legs and and spread them wide.

 

Ann didn’t quite understand the purpose of this, albeit rather arousing, move of dominance until Miss Lister massaged her nub again and the rose felt the difference the new angle made.

 

With a tight gasp and a roll of pleasure, Miss Walker pulled her legs up higher, bucking helpfully for Anne, whose face held an expression of indecent enthusiasm until her skilled fingers stopped wandering back and fourth over…that part, and they did something unexpected.

 

Miss Lister reached down…and kept going.

 

“Anne…that’s lovely, but what are you doing?” Miss Walker whispered, going rigid as she got a little anxious. 

 

This was beginning to remind her of what…what _he_ had done.

 

Anne correctly read her partner’s revulsion.

 

“Ann, my love,” she whispered. “This is…another way I can make you feel pleasure. Personally…”

 

Miss Lister leaned in and gave the rose another paralysingly deep kiss.

 

“I don’t like anyone…inside me,” she continued, more breathlessly still. “But is that something you’d enjoy?”

 

To demonstrate, Anne carefully traced Miss Walker’s entrance, (an entrance broken by this mysterious fellow, which made her unspeakably angry).

 

She allowed her finger to slide a tiny way up into the rose’s very centre, slicked in it’s nectar.

 

Ann gave a little choking noise.

 

“Yes!” she burst, as if by accident. “Anne, if you could, I…”

 

Miss Walker wriggled desperately around Miss Lister’s fingertip, trying to deepen the invasion.

 

Anne grinned impishly.

 

“You’re giving me a great gift, Ann, my darling…” she whispered 

 

“But is it going to hurt?” Ann demanded tautly, feeling a little afraid again despite the conviction in every cell of her body that it was the right thing to do.

 

“It shouldn’t, my love,” Anne purred. “But if it does, tell me and I’ll stop.”

 

_Or give it a thought…_

 

And in it went.

 

Miss Lister looked up eagerly to study the effect of her bold move.

 

Miss Walker was breathing heavily, seemingly aroused beyond articulation, though something in her expression could have been called panic.

 

Miss Lister let Ann become accustomed to the new sensation for a moment and revelled herself in her victory and how pleasant it was to be held inside the woman she so loved.

 

When no rebuttal came from the rose, Anne let another finger push its way inside. 

 

That was a mistake.

 

The warmth was gone as Ann withdrew.

 

Such was her character, Miss Lister was prepared to be irritated with Ann for being so fussy just before they both got exactly what they wanted.

 

However, she was not heartless enough to sigh or complain after she saw the tears in Ann’s eyes and the shaking in her body.

 

Miss Lister sighed to herself.

 

_She came so close…_

 

Miss Lister had been rejected by lovers at the last moment before, it was not a shock. What _did_ shock her, however, was that she had allowed herself to think that somehow the timid little Miss Walker might be different. Might be brave enough.

 

“Ann,” Miss Lister began solemnly after Miss Walker had shaken off her comforting hand. “I believe this was my fault. I took this much too far much too quickly. Are we…”

 

Miss Walker’s head was still in her hands, completely covering her pretty face, as if she were trying to suffocate herself.

 

“…Are we still…on?”

 

Miss Walker shook her head.

 

Miss Lister stood up and, being herself almost fully clothed, made for the doorway.

 

“But no! Anne!” Miss Walker called tearfully. “It wasn’t you! It was me! I just…”

 

Miss Lister narrowed her eyes and with her intuition when it came to women, had a thought as to what the cause of the rose’s new anxiety was.

 

“Am I about to hear about this mystery suitor of yours?” Anne asked dryly (though she, like her dandelion, was currently anything but).

 

“Don’t call him that,” Ann said in an ashy voice. “And besides, he’s a married man.”

 

“A married man?” Miss Lister repeated, coming to sit back down, suspicion prickling down her back.

 

Ann nodded.

 

“H-he was the husband…um… _is_ the husband of my friend, Mrs Ainsworth, and it was…was at their house…” she stuttered.

 

“While they were married?” Miss Lister wondered, surprised.

 

“Yes his w-Mrs Ainsworth was…”

 

Ann motioned limply to a space beside her.

 

“Was in the next room,” she whispered. “And…and he said I had to be quiet otherwise she would hear.”

 

Miss Lister frowned.

 

“This all sounds very unlike you, Miss Walker,” she said, scooting closer to examine her little rose’s face.

 

Ann sniffled.

 

“Yes, well, you see I…I’m not sure I really _like_ him, you see,” she breathed, as though he were in the room with them. “And…and didn’t really _want_ to. I told him I didn’t but he just sort of…sort of insisted! And he is terribly big!”

 

Ann’s voice was growing frantic.

 

“And…and then after that I was ruined, you see?” she hissed. “And I didn’t want to be ruined and I didn’t really…well I’ve told you he…he was a _he_ , you see and it wasn’t like…like this at all…”

 

Ann gestured to her mussed sheets and then stared hopelessly at her knees.

 

There was a beat of silence as Anne decided whether or not to explode.

 

“You mean to say he…” Miss Lister took a breath. “Ann, do you mean to tell me that you were _raped_ by this Mr Ainsworth? This _animal?”_

 

“Goodness, no!” Ann insisted frantically. “Nothing like that! It’s just….I told him I didn’t want to…but he…I suppose he wanted to…and so he _did_ …and it…hurt rather a lot. But I’m sure it was just a misunderstanding!”

 

“Just give me a minute,” Anne said thickly head now cradled in her hands.

 

Miss Walker’s face crumpled.

 

“Anne! Please! I’m so sorry I’ve ruined everything!” she burst. “I shouldn’t have said-”

 

“FUCK!” Anne shouted, leaping to her feet as a tidal-wave of rage smacked into her.

 

“Anne! I’m so sorry,” Ann whimpered.

 

 _Goodness! Why can I never keep my silly mouth shut!_ she thought to herself.

 

Miss Lister squeezed her eyes closed.

 

Darling, _darling_ Miss Walker! And that monster had…

 

Good Lord.

 

“I didn’t mean to scare you, my love,” Miss Lister said softly, coming to perch back on the bed as she got a better hold on herself. “Goodness knows that was the last thing you needed!”

 

“I’ve made you cross, Anne,” Miss Walker wept. “And after it was so _lovely,_ it really was.”

 

“I’m not cross with _you,_ Miss Walker, never with _you,”_ Anne said forcefully. “I’m enraged on your behalf.”

 

And that she was.

 

_I did consider the fact she might by lying._

 

_Why? I don’t know._

 

_She wasn’t ready for my advances, perhaps?_

 

_But looking into her eyes, I could see fear, and it wasn’t of me. She had been traumatised by this man._

 

_His wife was in the next room while it happened, while he hurt my darling Ann for his own pleasure, and I will never let it happen again._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay,
> 
> I have never written smut before, and this was all a bit of an experiment, so I need your feedback.
> 
> Good? Not good? Too much? Too little?
> 
> Please tell me in the comments, so later on I can write what you all want to read, if that makes sense…


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gah!
> 
> Where have I been for ages (well, not quite, but y'know...)
> 
> Hopefully this chapter will make up for it, featuring a lil' cameo from a well-known historical figure.
> 
> Also, warnings for self-harm thoughts, though there's no grisliness here because I am very squeamish!

_“What?”_ Miss Lister snapped, slamming shut the accounting book she had been pouring over, and glaring at her interruption.

 

Since her discovery about Mr Ainsworth’s abuse of her darling Miss Walker, Anne had been on rather a short fuse, and had ensured that everyone knew it. 

 

However, there was always one who couldn’t leave well enough alone, wasn’t there?

 

“I _said_ ‘who are you going with tonight?’” Elton repeated, chattily, around the doorframe of the office Anne had claimed as her own.

 

Anne gave an impatient sigh.

 

“What _are_ you talking about?”

 

“The poker game.”

 

“Poker game?”

 

“Yes, it’s a tradition for some of the bigger companies to play against one another and this year we qualify!” he hold Anne excitedly.

 

“Yes, exclusively thanks to _my_ efforts!” she burst.

 

Anne looked furious.

 

“Poker game?” she fumed to herself, the unfairness of her exclusion threatening to make her temper finally boil over. “And not invite _me?”_

 

“I’m inviting you _now!”_ Elton spluttered, laughing.

 

Ignoring him, in one fluid and rather aggressive movement, Anne had launched herself out of her chair and flung herself out of the door.

 

“You didn’t invite me,” she accused Marshall and Marks, the other directors as she arrived in front of them with a gust of charismatic wind.

 

Their identical guilty start suggested that the conversation Miss Lister had interrupted had been on that particular topic.

 

“We…didn’t think that was how a lady wanted to spend her evenings,” Marks began bravely.

 

“What!” Elton burst, grinning and sniggering like an idiotic male movie star. “No! There’ll be plenty of ladies there. All in their nice evening frocks! I’m sure Miss Lister’ll want to go!”

 

Anne turned slowly to face his infuriating impish smile.

 

“Now…I don’t _quite_ know what you were trying to mean by that…” she said slowly, eyes narrowed, before her head snapped back to the other directors. “And you’d be surprised what I do with my evenings. Besides that point, I’m a _fantastic_ cards player.”

 

“Oh really?” Elton laughed, but not unkindly.

 

Anne smirked back.

 

“My father once caught me at a lodging house at three o’clock in the morning playing cards with a group of soldiers on leave,” she informed him. “And I won.”

 

Marks squirmed.

 

There was no doubt Miss Lister made him excruciatingly uncomfortable in her efficiency and oddity.

 

“Well…alright, then,” he conceded. “You can come too.”

 

Anne smiled tightly.

 

“How generous of you,” she said, before stalking back to her sums.

 

 

***

 

 

Miss Walker slowly turned the jewel between her fingers.

 

Real diamond, knowing Anne.

 

Despite having lived her whole life surrounded with wealth, this particular gift spoke of a different kind of fortune: freedom.

 

Miss Lister was, without a doubt, the most free-spirited, strong-willed person Ann had ever met. She was special in the way that saints must have been - frighteningly charismatic and with an aura of _something else._

 

Ann knew, very well, that she was in love with her.

 

And, though her self-assurance was on par with a mouse’s javelin throw, Ann almost…sometimes… _nearly_ allowed herself to believe that Anne loved her too.

 

When she had been in Miss Lister’s arms, she had believed it whole-heartedly.

 

And then she had gone and ruined everything.

 

Since the incident, Miss Lister had barely touched her, angered, no doubt, by Ann’s tears from that horrible feeling.

 

Ann shivered and her whole skin crawled with the memory of big, rough, clammy hands, and much worse, forcing themselves into places that nobody should go.

 

Bar Miss Lister, that is.

 

Who now wasn’t touching her.

 

And that was all Ann’s fault.

 

The dandelion felt the sting of tears in her eyes and her stomach rolled with the horror of her situation.

 

She turned the broach from Miss Lister over and unclasped the pin. 

 

Her hands shook with the overwhelming urge to press the needle to the skin of her hand and-

 

“Miss Walker!”

 

Ann jumped guiltily and, breathing heavily, pinned, with trembling digits, the brooch back to her cardigan, wondering what had come over her.

 

“Miss Lister?” she called quietly, as her love along with her enormous personality, burst into the bedroom without invitation.

 

And there she was.

 

And everything was alright again.

 

“Ann,” Miss Lister smiled. “I need your opinion.”

 

Miss Walker looked puzzled before James entered the room, huffing with the effort of carrying several boxes of new clothes into the room.

 

After he had unburdened himself, Anne waved him away carelessly.

 

“Thank you, James!” the dandelion called sweetly after him.

 

“How are you, Miss Walker?” Miss Lister asked conversationally.

 

“I’m…alright,” she replied.

 

“Good,” Anne said, casting a concerned eye over her dandelion. “And I…”

 

She opened the first box with a flourish.

 

“…Have a do tonight but I can’t decide what to wear.”

 

“Oh goodness!” Miss Walker exclaimed, agony forgotten as she flopped to her knees and took handfuls of the expensive fabric. “Is this all new?”

 

“Yes, I wasn’t sure what the fashions were doing this week so I got a bit of everything,” Anne grinned, watching Miss Walker fawn over the smart clothing.

 

Most garments could have looked at home on a man. Only most, though.

 

“You…don't tend to wear things like this, Anne,” the dandelion said with a furrowed brow as she tried to imagine wonderful Miss Lister in the beautiful purple dress, adorned with tiny sparkly beads, she had pulled out of a box, and couldn’t.

 

Miss Lister grinned, then forced her face into a frown.

 

“Hmmm, yes, quite right,” she said mischievously. “I wonder what it was doing in there…”

 

From her pocket, Anne produced a necklace that obviously matched the dress and surrendered the jewellery and the dress to her lovely dandelion.

 

“It must be for you, Miss Walker…” she finished playfully.

 

“For _me!”_ Miss Walker breathed, forgetting that she had quite sufficient funds to have bought the dress herself. “Oh _Anne!”_

 

The dandelion shuffled closer and pressed a soft but very heartfelt kiss to Miss Lister's cheek. Softer still, Anne turned her head and cautiously pecked her precious dandelion on the lips.

 

The lips parted.

 

“Are you sure, Ann?” Miss Lister worried as she pulled back a little. “Would it not…upset you?”

 

“Is that why you’ve not really kissed me lately?” Ann asked quietly.

 

“Yes,” Anne said softly. “I didn’t want…hang on…”

 

The woman frowned.

 

“What did _you_ think I was thinking?” she asked.

 

“I…though you were bored of me,” Ann admitted in a whisper. “Or you were cross and were ignoring me.”

 

“I haven’t been _ignoring_ you, Ann,” Miss Lister said quietly. “And I could never be cross or bored with you! I just…”

 

She shrugged awkwardly.

 

“I just didn’t know what to do for the best. Goodness knows I want…”

 

She cast her arm despairingly to her beautiful love.

 

“But I couldn’t bear your being uncomfortable,” she finished. “So I was thinking…perhaps you would prefer to be…more in charge. While we’re intimate.”

 

“What do you mean?” Miss Walker asked, though unconsciously shifting herself closer and closer.

 

“I was hoping you might help me choose an outfit,” Miss Lister said with her normal dignity. “And then you might like to…”

 

Anne took a deep breath.

 

“Undress me.”

 

Miss Lister looked up at Ann with a wince in her face as the words hung in the air, sure she had somehow overstepped, but the dandelion was already hard at work rabbeting through the clothes.

 

“I’ve already chosen!” she said eagerly, advancing upon Anne with a greedy expression. “So now I just have to-”

 

A kiss to her lips stopped the dandelion mid-sentence and instead she moaned into the mouth of the woman she loved.

 

As Anne pulled away, to her delight, the dandelion was grinning fiercely.

 

“As distraction tactics go, Miss Lister, that one was just dastardly!” she whispered, giggling.

 

“Sorry, Ann. Besides I couldn’t use that one tonight at my poker game. That’s where I’m going.”

 

“A poker game!” Miss Walker squealed. "Goodness me! I shall have to make sure you look _very_ smart.”

 

A few heated moments later, splayed awkwardly on Ann’s expensive bed, Miss Lister didn’t look particularly smart. 

 

Beautiful, the dandelion thought, but not smart.

 

Enthralled with her new power, Ann the artist happily drew her hands over every inch of her… _lover._

 

She was wiry, and rather firm. Handsome at the same time as being rather pretty which was jarring.

 

Anne was inexperienced, but rather than doing exactly what Miss Lister had done to her, she used her imagination and instinctually took her touch to all the right places.

 

Despite this, Miss Lister was tense.

 

“I’ve actually…never let another woman touch me like this…” Anne murmured with a small frown on her face. 

 

“Is it…alright?” the rose asked meekly. “Does it make you uncomfortable?”

 

“...I...ah…”

 

Miss Lister gently moved the rose’s hand away from her breasts.

 

Miss Walker looked at Miss Lister curiously, wondering why she wouldn’t want a touch that she herself had _adored._

 

“I don’t really like…being touched, so much,” the older woman admitted.

 

She smiled bravely.

 

“So, think of this as an act of solidarity.”

 

“Oh _Anne,”_ the dandelion breathed, face crumpling.

 

“It’s fine,” Miss Lister reassured her quickly. “Don’t worry. I’m just…not used to it. See, I tend to only…”

 

“What?”

 

To Miss Walker’s astonishment, Miss Lister _blushed._ She might have been…could she even have been… _embarrassed?_

 

“Well…take…matters into my own hands,” she said gruffly. “Quite…er…quite literally, I suppose…”

 

“What do you…? Oh!”

 

Miss Walker blushed even _more_ impressively as she realised what Miss Lister must mean…even though the thought of Anne doing such a thing was not entirely unwelcome.

 

“Well…how could I comment?” Ann laughed sadly, in an attempt to make Miss Lister feel better about her admission. “Being ruined and all?”

 

Suddenly, Miss Lister was not at all sheepish and was clasping her little rose’s hands fiercely, boring into her gaze.

 

“Ann, he did _not_ ruin you,” she hissed passionately. “You are not in _any_ way defunct. You are _utterly_ perfect.”

 

The dandelion turned her face away.

 

“Ann?” Miss Lister said gently, stroking the side of her face tenderly.

 

“How?” the dandelion whispered.

 

“Look at you, Ann!” Miss Lister chuckled. “You positively _glow!_ You are _perfect!”_

 

“Perfect?” repeated Miss Walker.

 

“Yes.”

 

“You mean that?” she whispered, eyes huge.

 

Dotingly, Anne nodded and took Miss Walker’s plump lips in the tenderest of breathless kisses.

 

“Then…may _I?”_ the dandelion asked as Miss Lister felt the warmth of the other woman’s little palm on her chest.

 

With a pink glow in the rose’s cheeks, she stroked her hand down Miss Lister’s abdomen to settle her gentle fingers between the older woman’s legs.

 

Which, to both women’s astonishment, parted gladly.

 

 

***

 

 

_It seems that all is not as I feared._

 

_Miss Walker does indeed seem eager for a more intimate relationship. Very eager indeed._

 

_I must say, allowing another woman to watch me come apart - from her own ministrations, no less, was an extraordinarily alien feeling._

 

_I currently write to confess myself shocked._

 

_Shocked._

 

_I am shocked._

 

 

“You cheating?” came the slightly slurred tones of Anne’s co-worker.

 

“I’m taking notes, Elton,” she told the younger man impatiently, folding her diary shut to return her attention to the games tables she could see from her vantage point.

 

“Sounds like cheating,” he continued happily. “Here, let me buy you a drink.”

 

“Anything for you to leave me alone,” Miss Lister said dryly while he smirked.

 

Did he have no other facial expressions?

 

The gaggle of women that had formed around the man didn’t seem to mind that ridiculous face at all, in fact seemed wholly enamoured.

 

“Well _hulloooo_ ladies,” Elton said to an explosion of tipsy giggles, as he slung his arms around the nearest five.

 

“Have fun,” Anne said dryly.

 

“Jealous?” he said, with a momentary glint of sobriety in his handsome eyes.

 

“No, actually,” Miss Lister said sagely, feeling very much at peace, thinking of her little dandelion, probably curled up with her evening cocoa at that time of night.

 

Her _darling_ Ann.

 

Quickly bored of the womaniser’s ridiculous display, Anne moved to sit down at the nearest table where a new game was about to be dealt.

 

“Can I join?” she asked and, as a stack of casino chips leapt from her pocket to the table, magically a space seemed to appear for her, despite her appearance.

 

Anne watched like a hawk, played intelligently, and stayed remarkably sober in her competitiveness (wanting very much to out-do Marshall and Marks) while the other players got a little drunk, as was the point of such games.

 

It was for this reason that Miss Lister saw something she wasn’t meant to.

 

“Another round!” called the loudest and drunkest man with an impressive moustache lending him to Mediterranean descent.

 

He was the most arrogant player at the table and had, so far, won the most games.

 

Well, it was his casino, after all.

 

Anne watched the bartender mix the drinks and leave them on the bar for the waiter whereupon an unobtrusive man came to hover by the tray, blocking the drinks from view.

 

After a moment, he stepped away and, with a little more purpose than was necessary, walked straight out of the casino.

 

_Odd._

 

Miss Lister then watched the waiter bring the drinks, handing them out in order until he reached the most boisterous man where he deliberately reached for the furthest glass and put it soundly in front of the man.

 

The waiter left the room too.

 

And it made a little more sense.

 

“Ancora!” the man cried to rapturous applause, lifting the glass to his lips.

 

“Stop!” Anne cried but the cheering drowned her out.

 

So, with her great bounding strides, Miss Lister swept her way around the table and knocked the drink out of the man’s hand and onto the floor.

 

“What the…?”

 

Immediately the men behind him sprung into action. Burly arms dragged Anne to her knees and black eyes demanded an answer for her disrespectful behaviour.

 

“His drink!” Anne spluttered from the confines of her headlock. “A man he…put something in the drink!”

 

She pointed to the floor where the liquor was staining the red carpet a suspicious bleached yellow.

 

Now _that_ didn’t seem like malt whiskey, not at all.

 

In a blur, the casino was a riot of disorder as more burly men raced out of the door in pursuit of the mystery poisoner.

 

Guns were drawn, drinks knocked to the floor and women screamed.

 

“Let’s go,” hissed the voice in Anne’s ear.

 

From her captor’s unyielding arms, Miss Lister shot a last look to Elton, who was still by the bar and was clearly too drunk on scotch and pretty women to be any more help than a bucket without a bottom, and let herself be led out a back entrance away from the fray.

 

Anne was stunned when the winter air hit her face and more stunned still as the hand that had dragged her outside released her elbow and wrung her hand in a fierce handshake.

 

“You saved my brother’s life,” the man said reverently.

 

He put his hand on her shoulder and she caught the glint of eyes from under his bowler hat.

 

“Now I owe you a life…” he said in his punchy accent. “If you ever need someone protected…someone…”

 

He inclined his head suggestively.

 

“…Gone. We can sort it.”

 

The first thought in Anne’s mind was Miss Walker, but her dandelion was unlikely to appreciate a gangster’s escort for the sake of her safety.

 

“Hey, you don’t have to decide now,” the man continued. “We’re planning to be in the neighbourhood for a while. Take your time. Think carefully. You know where to find us.”

 

He looked back at the building, inside which all hell was breaking loose as the other ‘brothers’ identified and dealt with the culprits.

 

Miss Lister knew she had been lucky and how differently her night could have potentially gone.

 

Pressed against a freezing alley wall by an enormous and disreputable man was not somewhere she hoped to be again soon, and it was for the first time that she realised how dangerous New York City was compared to little Halifax.

 

It couldn’t happen again.

 

“I need to buy a gun from you,” Miss Lister said in her most dignified tone, looking the terrifying man in the eye.

 

The man looked surprised, but didn’t smirk as many would have, despite the fact that there was no way he couldn’t know she was a woman.

 

“What’s your budget?” he asked, through a cloud of smoke of the cigar he had just re-lit.

 

“I want a _good_ gun,” Anne said, unwilling to discuss her wealth with this particular gentleman.

 

“And you’ll have one,” he nodded, then frowned. “After I sort out this mess.”

 

He tutted.

 

“Baaaad for business…”

 

He turned back to Anne, who was using every shred of her aristocratic arrogance to maintain eye contact and stop herself shaking.

 

“Remember: one life,” the man said as he retreated with the swagger of criminality. “And we pay our depts.”

 

“Who should I ask for?” Anne called bravely after him.

 

“Mr Capone,” the man said before the door clicked shut, leaving Miss Lister alone in the freezing street.

 

“Fuck,” she breathed, letting her head fall into her hands.

 

Not long after, it was outside the dandelion’s apartment building rather than Anne’s hotel that the cab pulled up.

 

Miss Walker, looking like a little sprig of edelweiss in her frilly dressing gown, folded Miss Lister into a very welcome hug after she had apologised for her intrusion and admitted she didn’t want to sleep alone that night.

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone!
> 
> Thank you so much for all the love and support this story is getting!
> 
> I mean...awww, you guys :)
> 
> I hope you continue to enjoy it!

Upon waking to a fine, crisp winter’s morning, Miss Lister was disoriented for only a moment before a heartwarmingly distinctive snuffle of sleep beside her placed her, with certainty, in Miss Walker’s bedroom.

 

In her bed, in fact.

 

The morning was peaceful and shrouded in the feel of companionship, though, ever the early bird, Miss Lister went to launch herself out of bed to start her day.

 

 However, something in her companion’s sleeping face stopped her.

 

She was just so sweet, ladylike even in the depths of unconsciousness with her soft cheek pink over the top of the covers she had cocooned herself inside.

 

“Morning,” Miss Lister said sweetly, nudging Miss Walker’s little arm gently as the younger woman stirred just a little.

 

“Good morning to you too, Anne,” murmured the dandelion, weak with sleepiness, and turned over in bed delightfully, taking most of the bedclothes with her, leaving Anne beached on the mattress and bare-legged in the morning chill.

 

Miss Lister’s heart melted.

 

Then, the dandelion sat up so quickly it looked as though she had been electrocuted.

 

 _“Anne!”_ she squeaked. “Goodness! I had forgotten you were here!”

 

“Did you think you were dreaming?” Miss Lister chuckled.

 

Miss Walker blushed.

 

“What a question to ask me first thing in the morning!” she laughed, blushing. “And look you must be freezing!”

 

She tutted.

 

“Where _have_ all your covers gone?” 

 

“You’re a dreadful duvet thief,” Anne smirked.

 

“Accused of stealing my own duvet, Miss Lister!” the dandelion giggled playfully. “What an incredible morning this is turning out to be!”

 

She frowned and returned the covers to their rightful place over the top of her precious Miss Lister.

 

“Did I really?” she asked.

 

“Throughout the night there were a few instances of this, yes,” Miss Lister confirmed fondly. “But I managed to cuddle up close, so no harm done.”

 

Ann leaned in to nuzzle the other woman’s nose, revelling in the feeling of having just woken up next to her.

 

“Kiss?” she whispered and, soft as one of the feathers in the duvet she had been tragically robbed of, Miss Lister complied.

 

“Are you…alright Anne,” the dandelion asked, holding Miss Lister’s face in her palm. “After yesterday?”

 

“I’m always alright,” she muttered, but didn’t meet Ann’s eye.

 

“But seriously, though?” the dandelion pushed.

 

“If I say no can I stay over more often?” Anne said slyly, stroking Ann’s knee under the duvet.

 

“You don’t need to survive a gangster’s quarrel to stay over, Anne,” the dandelion told her, very earnestly. “In fact I’d rather you didn’t put yourself in that sort of danger ever again! I was worried sick, you know!”

 

“You were?” Anne asked, surprised.

 

“Wha…yes, Anne!” Miss Walker spluttered incredulously. “Goodness me! I can’t…can’t imagine how terrible it would be if something happened to you.”

 

She looked her love deep in the dark eyes with horror on her face at the thought.

 

“Well, nothing is going to happen to me…” Miss Lister sad with her reassuring certainty.

 

The businesswoman was then rudely interrupted by her _own stomach,_ of all things, which gave an impressive groan.

 

“Except maybe a spot of breakfast,” Ann whispered, tapping her beloved on the nose playfully with her little face scrunched up with laughter.

 

With the new quest for finding food, the dandelion wriggled out of bed but then found herself colliding with it again as an insistent pair of arms grabbed her from around the middle.

 

“Anne!” she gasped in surprise as she felt the sure hands that she had grown to intimately know commence with a barrage of tickling.

 

Ann squirmed with pleasure under Miss Lister’s scrutiny and artfully switched positions with the older woman where they shared a warm, and very certain kiss.

 

“What would you like to do today, Miss Walker?” Anne wondered, brown eyes twinkling like buttons.

 

“Don’t you need to see the others?” Ann asked her.

 

“Absolutely not!” Miss Lister replied. “It’s Saturday and I want to take you to the park, or shopping, or the museum…or…or the museum and the _theatre._ I just need to pick up my post and then I’m yours for the entire day.”

 

 _“Just_ today?” Ann asked with a playful pout.

 

“And tomorrow,” Miss Lister informed her gleefully. “The whole weekend.”

 

“I say, Miss Lister…” the dandelion giggled, nuzzling Anne’s neck.

 

“Perhaps even next weekend if I don’t have the Suffragette meeting,” Anne continued, slightly more breathlessly. “We’re having a protest fairly soon so we need to sort some things out.”

 

“I _am_ impressed you’re doing that, Anne,” Miss Walker sighed, to Miss Lister’s dismay, having pulled away. “Good Lord!”

 

“You could join me, Ann,” Miss Lister murmured. “We’re always thrilled to have new members.”

 

“I don’t know,” Ann said anxiously, hands twisting nervously in her skirt. “Oh…goodness…I…”

 

“Don’t worry, darling,” Anne said with kiss. “You needn’t decide now. And you could always do the next one.”

 

“I love it when you call me that,” the dandelion sighed, swaying to rest against Miss Lister. “My _darling…”_

 

“Of course you’re my darling - I’m madly in love with you and-”

 

There came another angry growl and Miss Walker, pink from the joy of Anne’s proclamation, stifled a little laugh.

 

“And your stomach’s going to be madly in love with James when her brings us some food when they’ve finished in the kitchen,” Ann said fondly.

 

She went to the door.

 

“James!” she called.

 

“Breakfast for two,” Miss Lister said authoritatively to the servant after he arrived who bobbed his head in acknowledgement. “Oh, and James, you couldn’t be so kind as to pop out a little later and pick up my post from my office? I’ll write you a note to take in if any of them give you any trouble for it.”

 

“Right-o, Miss lister,” he replied and bade his real employer a good morning with a warm smile.

 

“So…our weekend,” Anne said with her normal seductiveness after he had gone. “Down to business…”

 

Miss Lister, who was certainly one for treating her partners to the most lavish of gifts, felt the surge of joy, on top of this, at every smile that puckered itself out of Miss Walker’s perfect little lips as they were making their plans.

 

And later, as James handed her the post from the office, Miss Lister knew that the dandelion’s impish little grin might just grow wider.

 

“For you,” Miss Lister said, handing her companion the letter.

 

Ann’s little lips mouthed the numbers on the paper Miss Lister had just handed her, then her forehead furrowed in confusion.

 

“Miss Lister…?”

 

“This is your dividend,” Anne said excitedly. “It seems oil has been a rather fruitful investment…”

 

“Oh Anne!” Miss Walker gasped.

 

Then Miss Lister’s heart soared. There was that smile again.

 

“Dinner is my treat tonight, Miss Lister,” she giggled, as, smiling, Miss Lister continued to attack her impressively intimidating stack of mail.

 

The financial matters, Ann was awed to notice, proved no trouble for the woman, but it was only on receipt of a person correspondence that her smartly indifferent image cracked the slightest bit.

 

“Miss Lister,” Ann whispered. “Bad news?”

 

“No…just…unexpected,” Anne said, seeming stiffer than Miss Walker normally saw her.

 

Looking apologetic, she clasped her dandelion’s hand where to was curled on the table.

 

“I’m afraid we may have to cancel our dinner plans.”

 

 

 

***

 

 

 

“Miss Lister!” came the familiar voice, breaking the woman herself out of a furrowed frown.

 

“Mariana!” she replied and, with genuine affection, went to embrace her friend. “Goodness knows I was surprised to get your note this morning! What brings you to New York?”

 

“Missing you, Freddie,” Mariana sighed, squeezing herself tighter to Anne and their taxi to avoid plugging the flow of people spewing from the boat.

 

“Where is your baggage?” Miss Lister, always one for the practicalities, asked. “Already at the hotel?”

 

“No,” Mariana said distractedly. “The loading people are keeping it for me until I figure out where I’m staying, I thought I’d play it by ear once I arrived.”

 

“Well, I know a wonderful hotel,” Miss Lister told her. “It’s in Brooklyn but it shouldn’t be too dreadful a journey…”

 

Being correct, as was her way, Anne noted the roads were fairly clear of snow on the way to her hotel, though the tension in the taxi itself lent itself a little towards discomfort.

 

Mariana wasn't saying anything, and rather than being awestruck by her first glimpse of the glittering city, her eyes bored resolutely into her lap.

 

“You look well, Mariana,” Anne lied cheerfully to break the silence, concerned by the dark shadows she saw under her’s friends eyes.

 

“Well, I feel dreadful,” Mariana muttered back, sighing.

 

“It’ll be the crossing,” nodded Anne knowledgeably, thinking back to her meeting with poor, darling, Miss Walker. “Were you unfortunate with the waves?”

 

Mariana said _yes,_ she supposed she had been, and that rather stale piece of conversation carried them all the way to the hotel.

 

“A wonderful room,” Mariana said approvingly, wrinkling her nose only slightly as Anne launched herself with a bounce on to the bed _without even taking her shoes off._

 

Then, she noted something else that was less than satisfactory.

 

“Oh, _really,_ Anne?” she sighed, spotting the detonator of many an argument back in England. “You move across the world and that _thing_ comes with you?”

 

Anne looked hurt on behalf of the thermometer, (granted, the rather old fashioned and rather _enormous_ thermometer), laid lovingly on the bedside table.

 

“I wanted to see what the temperature was!” Miss Lister retorted. “Gracious me, Mariana! _It’s not illegal!”_

 

Mariana’a pursed lips suggested that she thought it ought to be, though before Anne could get too cross, she remembered how irritable _she_ had been after a week on the high seas and took a softer tone with her friend.

 

“Please, sit down, Mariana, you look dead on your feet!”

 

“Thank you,” she replied stiffly, taking the chair with some reluctance. “Oh, and I have a letter for you. Marian, gave it to me. Neither of us were sure where you were staying, so I sent my earlier letter to your company office.”

 

Mariana’s face tightened a little.

 

“And you…left without seeing me,” she continued, a little _too_ lightly. “So I wondered if you…wanted me to contact you after all.”

 

Miss Lister squeezed her eyes shut, regretting the laziest of goodbyes she had given Mariana who really had deserved more than that. 

 

“Mary…” she began beseechingly. “Please don’t think that…I…”

 

Anne sighed.

 

“Yes, I acted wrongly.”

 

Her companion gave a slightly hysterical laugh.

 

“You think so?” she asked with the kind of sarcasm that did nothing to prevent an argument with Anne.

 

“I was upset,” Miss Lister insisted. “I don’t want to bore you with the details of my expulsion but I’m fairly certain…”

 

She began to attack the letter from her sister with a paper knife, wielding it with rather unnecessary venom.

 

“That I won’t be getting any money out of…”

 

She unsheathed the letter and sighed.

 

“As I thought…”

 

“What?” Mariana asked.

 

“The condition of my inheritance was to be given half the value of Shibden,” Anne explained wearily. “But obviously to follow through on that they would have to sell, and I don’t want that. Since I’m doing perfectly well here by myself I’ll tell them not to bother…”

 

“Oh, so…business is going well, then?” Mariana asked casually.

 

“Yes! Very!” Miss Lister replied with an enormous smile bursting into bloom. “We…or should I say _I_ have made a very significant investment…care of a Miss Walker…”

 

At this, Mariana became a little nervous seeing the rather alarming look of enthusiasm on the other woman’s face.

 

“You really must meet her, Mariana,” Anne breathed.

 

“What’s she like?” Mariana wondered tartly, suddenly getting a very bad feeling about this Miss Walker. “Not one of these awful socialites I hope?”

 

“Not at all!” Miss Lister burst, enthralled. “How would I explain what she’s like…?”

 

She looked thoughtful for a moment.

 

“Clever,” she decided at last, with the infuriating smile of a person enjoying a joke the other is not privy too. “And interesting. And an _excellent_ artist. Quite simply…Well…”

 

Anne let out a breath, looking a little pink in the face.

 

“Mariana, she’s wonderful…”

 

Mariana did _not_ look as if she thought Miss Walker was very wonderful at all.

 

“And _pretty_ and _rich?”_ she added with pointed acid.

 

“I…”

 

Anne trailed off with a frown.

 

“Didn’t take you long to forget all about me, did it?” Mariana asked in a small, bitter voice.

 

“Mary, _please,”_ Anne implored, attempting to take one of the pale, bony hands, withdrawn before she had the chance. “Don’t be like that! Of course I’ve not forgotten about you! How could I _forget_ about you?”

 

“But you _have_ replaced me,” Mariana tried, then, after the instant denial didn’t come, she felt her heart plummet. 

 

She felt her nails did into her palms.

 

“Good lord, that didn’t take long at all,” she laughed bleakly. “When did you meet? Your first day here.”

 

“No, we met on the boat,” Miss Lister corrected her.

 

Mrs Lawton’s scowl was sufficient to prove her mounting displeasure. 

 

“Oh, really, Mary!” Anne said with the sudden urge to defend Miss Walker from insult before the enviable insult came. “We met and we liked one another and now we are friends.”

 

 _“Just_ friends?” Mariana repeated, voice rising. “Like we were _just friends?_ Before you _abandoned_ me?”

 

“Abandoned…?” Anne mouthed in wonder.

 

She rubbed her temples angrily.

 

_The vision of Miss Walker giggling in the winter sunshine as we eat our picnic together in the park was taunting me, because that’s where I would have been if Mariana weren’t so steadfastly irritating!_

 

“What do you want, Mariana?” Anne said, finally losing her patience. “I doubt you’ve come all this way just to remind me of our past or, rather, what you _perceive_ our past to have been.”

 

“I need somewhere to stay,” Mariana said with as much dignity as she could muster.

 

“Oh! So you _have_ come to remind me of the past,” Miss Lister sneered, angry. “Could this be a place to stay until Charles arrives and-”

 

“Charles died.”

 

There was a long thrum of silence.

 

“Mariana,” Anne said softly. “I am so sorry.”

 

“No,” Mariana said in an ashy voice, pulling her shawl tighter around herself. “You hated him.”

 

Anne let the next silence linger as she wracked her brains for something nice to say about Charles whom, yes, she hadn’t particularly liked.

 

“Are you alright?” she asked Mariana at last, who stood up suddenly to tower over Miss Lister.

 

“No, Anne, I am not alright!” she cried. “I have nowhere to go! He left what money he didn’t manage to lose to his third cousin or something ridiculous and I am _ruined!”_

 

“Alright,” Anne said calmly, recognising crisis. “It will be alright, Mary, don’t worry…We’ll sort something out.”

 

“Is ‘we’ you and I or is it you and your lovely little Miss Walker?” Mrs Lawton hissed with tears filling her eyes. “Or you and that…”

 

She flung her arm accusingly towards the thermometer.

 

“Ridiculous _over-compensation!”_

 

Miss Lister’s face clouded over and she felt the bubbles of reflexive anger in her blood with materialised every time Mariana shouted.

 

“Over-com…” she spluttered.

 

Anne stood up too.

 

“So…so you arrive here in New York,” she shouted. “With no money and nowhere to stay, all your belongings and just expect me to look after you whilst you insult me, _Miss Walker_ and my _poor_ thermometer? Oh…that is _so_ like you, Mariana…”

 

“I thought you wanted to live together!” Mariana counted with equal passion.

 

“I _did,”_ Anne roared, without a thought to the adjoining rooms in her ire. _“You_ didn’t!”

 

“But I do now,” Mariana shot back.

 

“Oh, so you shan’t live with me at Shibden,” Miss Lister hissed. “But in New York you are perfectly happy to keep my company. When you need my money. Oh, I see.”

 

“It’s not like that, Anne!” Mrs Lawton shouted hoarsely.

 

“Like _what?”_

 

Mariana swelled with the breath she would need.

 

“Not all of us are fortunate to inherit the means to support ourselves, like Miss Walker,” she said slowly, as if she were explaining to a child. “Or to have the…”

 

She struggled for words.

 

“…Whatever quality you have that makes you succeed in the world,” she snapped. “The vast majority of women have to make sensible decisions - decisions that will _support_ them. So, again, Anne, I’m very sorry that I’m not in a position to do exactly as I please!”

 

Then, she laughed.

 

“Why is it…” she began, with a voice tinged with madness. “That you… _you_ have somehow managed to find a place in this world yet I, who have done _everything_ in my power to behave as society deems fit, is suddenly cast out. Why Anne, you a…”

 

She windmilled her hands in Anne’s direction, the waistcoat and brogues suddenly infuriating her.

 

Really, who did Miss Lister think she was?

 

“A _freak_ to which rules don’t apply?”

 

The room went icy cold as a line as crossed.

 

“I see why Charles was always so cross with you, now,” Anne said emotionlessly, snatching her coat and had from the dresser where she had flung them earlier.

 

“Anne, that was an awful thing to say, and you know it,” Mariana said in an ashy voice. “Take that back.”

 

Miss Lister was not prepared to. However, Mariana was recently widowed and, contrary to popular belief, Anne was not a monster.

 

She took a deep calming breath and attempted to channel Miss Walker’s kind spirit before she smashed something.

 

“Let’s go down to the reception,” Anne said, deciding to tackle the practicalities. “And see if they have another room available here. Perhaps you could-”

 

“Anne,” Mariana said desperately, and frustratedly, realising that the situation was not understood by the independently wealthy Miss Lister. “I have….No…Money.”

 

“Then, Mariana,” Miss Lister said with a tight smile. “You have this room for the night and tomorrow we’ll talk.”

 

“Where are you going?” Mariana demanded, dashing after Anne to the door.

 

“To Miss Walker’s.”

 

“Anne! Aren’t you going to apologise?” Mrs Lawton spluttered.

 

“Perhaps eventually,” Miss Lister muttered. “I just need to clear my head.”

 

“Wh- _Now?”_ Mariana cried. “But it’s nearly dark, Anne! You can’t possibly go out alone!”

 

“I’m a freak to which normal rules don’t apply,” Anne snapped bitterly. “I’ll be fine.”

 

_“Anne!”_

 

As she slammed the handsome door on her furious…infuriation, Anne felt only marginally better. What she needed was a warm Miss-Walker-cuddle and glass of scotch. And perhaps some food, she hadn’t eaten for-

 

At first, Anne _heard_ more than felt the hard object connect with her cheek bone, then the sickening throb oozed down the side of her face.

 

“You that Suffragette bitch?” snarled a voice laced with whiskey, appearing out of the shadows.

 

He dragged Anne to her feet, taking her style of dress as the affirmation he sought.

 

“You’re not to protest, hear me?” he hissed, breath billowing in the cold air.

 

Somewhere through the fog of pain, the man's purpose registered in Anne’s brain and, before she really knew what she was doing, she had her new purchase in her hand and her attacker was backed, alarmed, against the closed shop front behind them.

 

“Get up. Walk away,” she grunted as her assailant stared, panicked, down the gun barrel. “You don't seem like you have the brains to form any kind of political opinion, so tell whoever put you up to this, that not only ambushing someone in an alley is a cowardly thing to do, but the Suffragettes are in no way cowards and this…”

 

Anne spat some blood out of her mouth where it stained the scuffled snow below them.

 

“Won’t stop us,” she growled. “Now go.”

 

Thinking he might do just that, the man scarpered, leaving Anne wounded but safe with the gun heavy in her hand.

 

Hobbling back, Anne stuck to the shadows at the side of the road. Then, for the second time in a row, Miss Lister was knocking on the dandelion’s smart apartment door.

 

It was James who answered.

 

“Hel-Oh…” he trailed off with wide eyes. “Er…Miss Lister…do…come in…”

 

Not giving a reply, Miss Lister barged forwards and examined the hideous new bruise on her cheek, though nothing seemed to be broken.

 

“Should I telephone the constable?” James asked quietly, dreading the horror on Miss Walker’s face is she saw her lov- _friend’s_ face in such a state.

 

“No, best left alone, this one,” Miss Lister panted. “Perhaps…do you have any bandages?”

 

“Certainly, madam,” he nodded and briskly retreated, drowning out the sound of soft little footsteps pattering along the other hallway.

 

“Anne! So nice you… _ANNE!”_ squawked the dandelion as she entered the room and caught sight of…

 

Gracious! What had _happened?_

 

“Your poor _face!”_ Miss Walker gasped, darling forwards like a little fish. “I shall have to keep you inside at night, you know! Goodness me! _Twice in a row,_ Anne!”

 

“Please…” Anne said weakly, too exhausted for fussing.

 

The dandelion looked at her critically.

 

“Mariana didn’t do that, did she?” she asked suddenly, with horrible inspiration.

 

At this, Anne laughed, making her face hurt more significantly.

 

“No,” Anne chuckled. “She tends to go for lower blows…”

 

Miss Walker gave a polite chuckle but still looked concerned. So concerned, it made Anne feel almost a child again. Somewhat small and in need of being put to bed with cocoa.

 

Miss Walker seemed like she could manage rather a good cocoa.

 

“Would you mind terribly if I intruded upon you for another night?” Miss Lister whispered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I personally think James ships it :)
> 
> Plus poor, hypocritical Mariana might just qualify as one of her ‘awful socialites’, don’t you think?
> 
> However, I actually feel very sorry for Mariana because, really, Anne was (in the real-life story) very fortunate in her wealth and social standing which I think went a long way to make her lifestyle possible.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, sorry, sorry!
> 
> A month since the last update!
> 
> Despicable, I know!
> 
> Also, this chapter is a little shorter than normal but the reason that it has taken so long is that this scene was part of another chapter (which is coming next) and that one is a real doozy to write (hopefully it'll be worth it. I mean, God, I hope so...)
> 
> I decided to split the thing in the interest of providing you all with this sickeningly fluffy scene on this fine Sunday.
> 
> Enjoy!

 

“You get back to bed this _instant,_ Miss Lister!” thundered the soft voice of authority from the hallway. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed you trying to slink off and _tire yourself out!”_

 

“I was just going to the lavatory, Ann!” Miss Lister called back, a secret smirk on her face. “Good _Lord!_ Is _that_ not allowed any more?”

 

“Back to bed, Anne! Rest!” commanded a very determined looking Miss Walker as she barrelled into the room with an armful of blankets that looked entirely too big for her to manage.

 

“It’s a black eye, not the bubonic plague!” Anne grumbled, though allowed herself to be tucked up tight in bed like a parcel.

 

“No, you’ve caught a dreadful chill,” Ann clucked. “I can tell. Here, have another handkerchief.”

 

“Maybe I _am_ feeling a little under the weather,” Anne croaked feebly as she tried in vain to free herself from her cashmere prison to accept her dandelion’s gift.

 

“So I’m going to telephone your office and tell them that you won’t be in for a few days,” Ann finished proudly.

 

“I _am_ well enough to go!” Anne insisted, squirming. “I _must_ go in! I need to…”

 

“Need to what?” Miss Walker asked gently.

 

“I…” said Miss Lister as she tried to recall what had been so dreadfully important. 

 

Then inspiration struck.

 

“Well, for starters,” she said stormily. “Tell Mr Jeff Elton that not only is he an _appallingly_ bad poker player, he has no integrity whatsoever and is about as useful an ally in a bar fight as a feather duster!”

 

“That might very well be true,” said Ann in un unusually schoolmistress-ey fashion, drawing herself up to her full, (and, bless her, rather underwhelming) height. “But you’re currently busy having a discussion with your primary shareholder.”

 

“Goodness!” Anne grinned. “A fierce dandelion!”

 

The fierce dandelion became somewhat confused.

 

“What?” she frowned then smiled in disbelief. “Anne…are you _blushing?”_

 

She was. _Cursing_ herself for her carelessness.

 

“It’s not important,” she muttered sheepishly.

 

“Anne…”

 

Miss Walker’s big eyes became bigger than normal and somehow managed to tease an explanation out of her captive like a hairbrush through gently knotted hair.

 

“I…sometimes…I think of you as a dandelion clock,” Miss Lister confessed in a whisper with shining eyes.

 

“Is this Freud again?” Ann wondered as she curled up next to her patient, thankfully subdued for the moment.

 

“No, you…you’re just so graceful,” Anne said softly, wrenching an arm from under the blanket to brush Ann’s cheek. “And beautiful.”

 

“Oh…” Ann breathed in wonder.

 

Under the duvet, Anne shrivelled.

 

“I’m m-mortified I said-”

 

“No! It’s alright, Anne!” Miss Walker burst, clasping her palms to Miss Lister’s burning cheeks.

 

She grinned at the guilty look in the woman’s eyes.

 

“I’m very _proud_ to be a dandelion,” she whispered, leaning forward slowly. “And prouder still to be _your_ dandelion.”

 

Before she felt the expected press of Miss Walker’s lips on her own, Anne heard a giggle as, teasingly, the proud dandelion pulled away at the last moment.

 

“I’ll bring you some of that vegetable soup!” she said excitedly, extracting herself from Anne and dashing from the room.

 

With a groan, Anne’s head hit the pillows.

 

“I really don’t feel well enough for vegetables, Ann,” she croaked, feeling suddenly as weak as Miss Walker was insisting she was.

 

“Miss Lister! You _need_ vegetables to get _better!”_ Miss Walker called as she went off in search of the evil broth.

 

“There’s nothing wrong with me!” Miss Lister insisted, though somehow it came out sounding like more of a plea.

 

After that, Miss Lister didn’t bother to protest since she knew that the soup would be on its way whatever excuse she gave.

 

The dandelion was determined.

 

“This is lovely, Ann, thank you,” Miss Lister said, gesturing to her bowl after the food had, regretfully, arrived, as Miss Walker appeared yet again, (this time cradling a warm hot water bottle).

 

“You’re very welcome,” the dandelion beamed.

 

Upon receipt of the warmth, the two women lay in companionable silence with Ann stroking Miss Lister’s hair until Miss Walker found it in her to speak.

 

“Anne,” the dandelion said at last.

 

“Yes?”

 

“I was…I’ve been wondering…” she continued.

 

 _“Yes?”_ Anne said again, a little suspicion now colouring her voice.

 

“Well…you haven’t bought an apartment yet…”

 

“No, and I ought to. Goodness I hadn’t thought…” Anne groaned, closing her eyes lightly. “What with Mariana being an enormous pain and well.”

 

She gave a little laugh and gestured around Miss Walker’s plush bedroom. “I always seem to be here.”

 

“Well…that’s what I wanted to talk about,” Ann continued bravely. “See…I always feel much better when you’re here. Even if you’ve been in some sort of _fight,_ which I never like.”

 

She scowled sternly at her captive before brightening as her idea, now that it was finally being voiced, began to seem in fact rather feasible.

 

“And then I was thinking…” she said breathlessly. “Well…would you like to move in here?”

 

Ann peeked at Anne gingerly.

 

“L-Live with you?” Miss Lister choked.

 

“Oh, but only if you wanted!” Ann said in a hurry, thinking she may have overstepped.

 

“For…for how long?” Anne breathed.

 

“As…well…” Ann shrugged with faux nonchalance. “As long as you wanted, I should think. But not if you don’t want it, it was just a…Anne?”

 

Miss Walker froze as she heard the unmistakable sound of quiet sobbing from beside her.

 

“Anne, what’s the trouble?” the dandelion gasped urgently.

 

Miss Lister didn’t seem to be able to speak, merely shook her head.

 

“Anne, please!” Miss Walker whispered frantically. “I’m sorry for whatever I said wrong!”

 

“Ann…” Miss Lister hiccuped. “The number of times I…”

 

She wiped her face aggressively on the bedcovers.

 

“The number of times I’ve wanted to actually _live_ with a companion…” she wept. “And I never dreamed anyone would _a-ask_ me. Ask _me.”_

 

“So…” Ann said, rocking side-to-side with anticipation. “Is that a ‘yes’?”

 

“Ann,” Miss Lister laughed tearily, delirious with happiness. “I would like nothing better in the _world.”_

 

“Oh, Anne, really?” Miss Walker breathed, as, with the handkerchief that Miss Lister had valiantly ignored, she wiped the tears from the woman’s face.

 

Miss Lister nodded.

 

The dandelion shone.

 

“Kiss?” Miss Walker sensibly suggested.

 

“I think that’s a good idea, Ann,” Miss Lister replied, and gladly accepted her dandelion’s smiling lips.

 

With a delectably ladylike groan, if there was such a thing, Miss Walker deepened the kiss to savour the feel and taste of Miss Lister’s quick and wicked tongue.

 

Immediately she pulled away with an exasperated giggle.

 

“Anne, you have not had a _single_ mouthful of that soup!”


	11. Chapter 11

 

“Whoa! What happend’d you?” smirked Mr Elton as Anne stomped her way into work on the first day the dandelion had let her out of bed.

 

“Maybe if you hadn’t been drunk as a skunk at the bar you would remember!” she snapped, slamming her briefcase down on her desk.

 

“I would have knocked them out cold,” he boasted, shooting a passing secretary a hearty wink.

 

“No, you wouldn’t have,” Miss Lister said, in an attempt to divert the blushing secretary’s interest from a path that could only end in disaster.

 

Scowling, Elton returned to his work, and Anne to her plans to move her things that afternoon from the hotel to Miss Walker’s-… _their_ apartment.

 

Under Miss Lister’s rather terrifying supervision, the move was swift and efficient and it wasn’t long before the thermometer was acclimatising to its new residence on Miss Walker’s wall.

 

However, Anne’s good mood was shattered instantly when Miss Walker arrived, ghostly pale, from her trip out with James and settled herself weakly on the sofa, looking, for lack of a better word, terrified.

 

“Ann!” Miss Lister cried at once. “Goodness! What happened!”

 

For a few moments, Miss Walker couldn’t speak, a few tears leaking out from under her eyelids.

 

“Mr Ainsworth is c-coming _here,”_ she said at last, voice like a grave. “And my friend, Mrs Ainsworth is….well she’s sort of commandeered my house for the week. She wants to have _p-parties…”_

 

“Wait…they are _staying here?”_ Miss Lister clarified sharply, horror dawning.

 

Miss Walker nodded.

 

“No they’re bloody not!” Miss Lister laughed madly, thinking the whole thing beyond absurd considering what he…what Mr Ainsworth…

 

Her fist clenched around the arm of the sofa.

 

“Well, they know me…” Ann shuddered. “A-And there’s no good reason to say _no.”_

 

 _“‘No good reason’?”_ Anne spluttered.

 

“And they like parties,” the dandelion continued, looking very distant. “So they need the space…”

 

Before Ann could register the movement, Miss Lister was resolutely on her feet.

 

“By the time I’m finished with Mr Ainsworth, he could stay in a _matchbox!”_ she snarled.

 

“Miss Lister!” Ann gasped.

 

“I’m not entirely joking,” Anne replied truthfully, preparing to do whatever it took to protect and, if at all possible, avenge, her precious dandelion.

 

 _Let him come here,_ read the barely legible words practically _carved_ into the page of her diary. _And let’s see if he gets to leave._

 

 

***

 

 

The drive to the port was stony.

 

Miss Lister glared out of the car’s windows kneading the knuckles of one hand with her other, soothing them, for the lack of contact with Mr Ainsworth’s nose was worrying them greatly.

 

 _This_ worried _Ann,_ who was in a state of panic and kept squirming in her seat.

 

“I…I shouldn’t have told you…what I told you,” she burst at last, sensing impending social disaster.

 

“No, Ann, you did absolutely the right thing,” Miss Lister told her sternly, neglecting her clenched fist to take the dandelion’s trembling little hand and bring it lightly to her lips.

 

“But you must _promise_ me you won’t say anything to him!” Ann quavered, eyes wide and terrified.

 

No promise came.

 

_“Anne!”_

 

“I will be _civil,”_ Miss Lister said, as reasonably as she could. “Unless he makes the first move.”

 

“The first move being what?” squeaked Miss Walker.

 

“Saying or doing _anything_ that irritates me,” Anne said with a bitter finality.

 

The taut silence that followed carried them to their destination.

 

“There they are, then,” Miss Lister muttered, picking Mr Ainsworth’s dog collar and portly wife out from the crowd and feeling such a wild urge to protect Ann that she was glad she had elected to leave her pistol at home.

 

Aware of the storm to her side, feeling a little faint, and missing keenly Anne’s comforting hand, the dandelion floated forth to greet the couple.

 

“Mrs Ainsworth,” she said meekly to the woman before slowly turning to the real object of her horror. “M-Mr Ainsworth.”

 

The man smiled widely. Like a toad, Miss Lister thought with disgust that would have lingered even if, like most women, she had noticed how handsome he was.

 

“Hello An-”

 

He was interrupted as a figure swooped towards him.

 

“Mr Ainsworth!” cried the alarming wo…er…woman? next to Ann.

 

She surged forwards to seize Thomas’ hand in the most agonising, bone-crushing handshake he had even endured.

 

“This is my friend, my _good_ friend, Anne,” Miss Walker stumbled as her _good friend Anne_ stared the man down like a bird of prey does a rabbit.

 

He looked frankly alarmed.

 

“Goodness!” Mrs Ainsworth laughed, amused at the odd creature before her. “Aren’t you something!”

 

“Always interesting for one to meet their opposites, wouldn’t you say?” Anne replied in a friendly manner, though Ann winced at the underlying sharpness that she managed to detect.

 

“W-Well, yes,” Mrs Ainsworth sniffed, thinking it really a rather good thing she wasn’t anything like this…thing. “I suppose.”

 

“We organised two cars,” Anne smiled charmingly. “Wouldn’t want things to get too cramped. After all, isn’t it true that _Personal space is a luxury we can all enjoy.”_

 

She turned her dark eyes meaningfully towards the tall man. However, _he_ was busy drinking in the delicious and dearly missed sight of pretty little Annie Walker looking determinedly at her own feet.

 

“Miss Walker…Coming with _me?”_ he asked, offering an arm, though before the poor dandelion had time to comprehend the potential for further ruin in the back of a motorcar, she had been seized by the hands of proactivity.

 

“No,” Anne said soundly, and led her dandelion away.

 

 

***

 

 

Three days into the visit, it was clear to Anne how much the Ainsworths’ stay was taking its tole on her poor dandelion.

 

The last straw seemed to have been when the carpenters arrived on Saturday morning and asked Ann where Mrs Ainsworth, who the man took to be Ann’s _mother,_ wanted the stage for the live band to be constructed.

 

“I can’t do this!” Ann breathed. “I can’t have all those people here. People I don’t even _know_ …in my apartment!”

 

“We can cancel, Ann,” Miss Lister said patiently, for the fourth time. “We can send it all back. She had _no_ right to invite _anyone_ over to _our_ home.”

 

“No…it’s too late…” Ann muttered distractedly, looking half-mad. “How ever would I _explain?”_

 

Miss Lister’s long-suffering knuckles knew how _they_ would like to explain the situation.

 

“Well if you’re sure…” she said slowly, an idea forming for another plan of attack. “…Maybe we could make a do of it?”

 

“What do you mean?” the dandelion asked, from where her head was now buried in her own knees.

 

“Invite _our_ friends, too!” Anne suggested with more than a hint of giddiness. “The Rothschilds are still in town, you know them, don’t you? I know Mrs Rothschild wants to talk about having you paint her portrait.”

 

“I…suppose…” Miss Walker conceded forlornly.

 

“And my Suffrage group!” Anne realised, with new fervour. “We could have the place swarming with Suffragettes! And…Ann, my love?”

 

Miss Walker seemed barely comforted.

 

“I’ve been hiding,” she whispered, quivering with the horror of her situation. “I can’t avoid being alone with him forever.”

 

Dropping to kneel in front of her beloved, and take both of her hands, Miss Lister began to speak softly. 

 

“Wherever you go, I go, Miss Walker,” she told the woman she loved. “No harm will come to you from him, I _promise.”_

 

“Really?” Ann whispered, undergoing one of the transformations that Miss Lister found magical, where from tears she unfurled and brightened and became suddenly _unforgettably_ beautiful.

 

“Yes, Miss Walker,” Anne said solemnly.

 

“Then I’m going to wear the dress you bought me,” Ann announced, in turn, remembering that nothing could be too horrible whilst Miss Lister was with her.

 

With that, a whirlwind of preparation began with Miss Lister becoming almost worryingly enthusiastic. 

 

Finally, as the light faded in the winter sky, the famous purple dress was laid lovingly on the dandelion’s bed and the couple found themselves dressing for what was to be a rather splendid, albeit awkward, occasion.

 

“Ann…I’ll be with you for the whole night,” Miss Lister reminded her dandelion, pressing a line of kisses down her bare shoulder as though to ink the promise onto her soft skin. “I won’t let you out of my sight.” 

 

“Thank you, Anne,” the younger woman breathed through the last round of tears she could allow before her home filled with strangers and crying would become rather rude. “I _love_ you.”

 

With this proclamation, Miss Lister’s clever fingers which had being buttoning Miss Walker’s dress froze, then suddenly, one by one, the buttons started to fall open again, with even greater haste and purpose.

 

“Miss Walker…” Miss Lister then moaned, almost inaudibly and, letting the back of the dress fall away, traced a line up the dandelion’s delicate spine and then swept her hands between the fabric of the dress and the woman herself to rest directly against Ann’s little warm tummy.

 

 _“Anne…”_ the dandelion gasped as the muscles reacted to the touch as if seconds, not _weeks,_ had passed since Mr Ainsworth’s name had first been uttered and something had been left unfinished between the two of them. “We need to…”

 

What was the thing they needed to do, again?

 

Miss Lister seemed a little more interested in Ann’s delicate jawline than whatever annoyance she was about to remind them of.

 

“G-get ready…?” Miss Walker gasped after she had managed to remember.

 

It also dawned on her that Anne had worn the cologne that she was particularly fond of and, the fact that Miss Lister had remembered this, made the dandelion’s heart swell with affection to the extent that her own hands became somehow locked around Anne’s handsome belt buckle.

 

The moment was interrupted with a knock.

 

“Ma’am?” called James from outside the door, who knew very well that now Miss Lister was a permanent resident, knocking was essential and not entering _at all_ was often preferable. “The cars have started to arrive.”

 

“Thank you James! I’ll be right down!” Ann called breathlessly, an octave too high as she jumped guiltily.

 

Now flushed and frantic, Miss Walker looked around, confused, for a moment.

 

“Quick, Anne! Do me up!” she hissed, hoisting her dress back into some semblance of a polite position.

 

With equal discipline, owing to the new pressure of the situation, Miss Lister fastened the buttons again as Miss Walker attended to her earrings but, in a move of _utter_ wickedness, she gave Ann’s soft bottom a greedy pinch before she stepped away.

 

“Anne!” Miss Walker giggled, swatting the hand away playfully. “Stop! I tell you, you’ll be the _undoing_ of me, I swear!”

 

“That’s later, darling,” Miss Lister murmured, leaning in for a lingering kiss of Miss Walker’s swanlike neck to last her the duration of what was sure to be a long night.

 

“Miss Lister, you are _too_ charming,” Ann huffed, touching her love briefly on the nose before wilting, overcome with the enormity of her task. “I suppose _I’ll_ have to be charming now…”

 

“You’ll be a _triumph,_ Miss Walker,” Anne reassured her, as, checking for any evidence of their heated moment, they left the room.

 

***

 

“Ann Walker! So lovely to see you!” cried a musical voice and Ann allowed herself to be kissed heartily on both cheeks by the cloud of expensive perfume.

 

“M-Mrs Rothschild,” Miss Walker blushed. “Wonderful to see you, too!”

 

“And my!” exclaimed the woman in her rich accent. “Zis beautiful apartment! Zis ees where ze magic happens? I suppose you ‘ave a studio, no?”

 

“Um, not yet,” Ann admitting, smiling bravely to Mrs Ainsworth who was preening herself at the other end of the room. “But I’m working on it.”

 

“Good!” the Frenchwoman declared. “We were _so_ surprised to learn zat a _woman_ painted the piece from zat wonderful Miss Lister of yours! But oh, aren’t you _talented!”_

 

“Um…Miss Lister…she…isn’t…” Miss Walker spluttered, neck reddening at the memory of that last kiss. “…I-Isn’t _my_ Miss Lister…”

 

Mrs Rothschild smiled kindly.

 

“I’m from Paris, darling,” she said with a comforting pat on the arm, as this explained everything. “Eet’s alright.”

 

Then, as if summoned, Miss Lister (who was making good on her promise) appeared, towing Mr Rothschild with whom she had been in deep financial conversation.

 

“Mrs Rothschild! I’m so pleased you could make it before you go back to France,” she said eagerly.

 

“Wouldn’t miss eet,” the woman smiled, waving her cigarette coquettishly. “And you know I _cannot_ miss an opportunity to dress up.”

 

“Indeed,” grinned her doting husband.

 

“But look! We are dressed almost ze same!” she exclaimed, gesturing from Ann to her own violet cocktail dress.

 

“Oh! Good Lord! Is…isn’t that terribly bad?” Miss Walker worried. “I-I could pop upstairs and change into something else?”

 

“But of course not!” Mrs Rothschild laughed. “Eet ees rather fun, ees eet not? Imagine! Wearing ze same as Ann Walker! Darling! Look! We could be sisters!”

 

As Mr Rothschild agreed with a crinkly smile and began to engage Miss Walker in a long conversation about his wife’s portrait, as if my some dark force, Miss Lister detected trouble and, lo and behold, there came Mariana, dressed in a widow’s black dress with a plunging neckline, and meaning mischief.

 

“Oh Lord, here we go,” Miss Lister sighed to herself, moving to intercept the threat, after she had spotted Mr Ainsworth a suitable distance away from dear Ann.

 

“Mariana!” she hissed. “What the _devil_ are you doing here?”

 

“I wanted to meet your little Miss Walker,” she said with a professional sneer. “I thought this was an open invitation and after half of New York seems to be here, I thought, ‘why not the evil queen?’”

 

“You flatter yourself, Mariana,” Anne said tautly, aware that Miss Walker was vanishing amongst the throng of guests.

 

“You flatter _yourself,_ Anne,” she replied. “Thinking that a woman who can afford _all_ of this, and keeps such company…”

 

She gestured to Mr Rothschild whom, with alarm, Anne noticed to no longer be accompanied by her beloved.

 

“Is interested in _you.”_

 

“Ann _loves_ me,” Miss Lister declared confidently, at the same time aware of the dandelion’s worrying absence from the makeshift dance floor.

 

“Did _I_ not say I loved you?” Mariana hissed, eyes new filling with defiant tears.

 

Anne turned coldly to her former lover.

 

“It’s deeds, not words, Mariana,” she spat.

 

Leaving Mrs Lawton stunned as though slapped, Anne began frantically scanning the crowd again.

 

“And I need to find Miss Walker,” she continued, more icily still in her worry. “So perhaps you’d like to leave.”

 

“Why?” Mariana croaked bitterly, eyes a new pink. “Can’t have her out of your sight?”

 

“I promised her…” Anne breathed, panic overtaking her as she realised that Mr Ainsworth, too, had been lost from her eyeshot.

 

“Oh you _promised…”_ Mariana laughed sarcastically.

 

“Would you shut up for a moment?” Anne snapped, eyes darting around the room. “This is actually important, she could be in real trouble.”

 

“Doesn’t she know the way around her own apartment?” the other woman teased.

 

“Oh, Good Lord, Ann!” Miss Lister muttered, pushing violently away form Mariana and into the throng of people. “Where _are_ you?”

 

“Anne… _is_ everything alright?” came Mariana’s voice, hot on Miss Lister’s heels, with a slight note of real concern for Anne’s bizarre behaviour. “What’s going on?”

 

At this, and knowing deep down her search was fruitless, Anne turned to the woman and spoke urgently.

 

“Mariana, when did you last see Mr Ainsworth?”

 

 

***

 

 

Where was she, where was she?

 

Mr Ainsworth frowned as he skirted the room, searching for his blonde beauty.

 

The blonde beauty whom, despite being his host for the week, he had barely seen.

 

 _It’s all that beastly Miss Lister,_ he thought angrily, thinking that the woman, if indeed she really was, was _most_ sinister and if there was anything he could do to help little Annie escape her clutches, he would do it.

 

This was something that he discussed at length with his wife during their long nights of passionate bickering which left him disgruntled and more eager than ever for Ann Walker.

 

And, just like that, he spotted her walking towards the lavatories and thanked his god, to whom he was most devout, for his long-awaited opportunity.

 

Following the woman down the secluded corridor and then waiting impatiently for her to reemerge from the water closet, he thought, to his discontent, how she seemed to have more of a sway in her hips than when he last saw her. 

 

Was she happy? Was this what she liked? Parties like his stupid, superficial wife?

 

Women were not to be vain and parade around like swans, he thought passionately and, as she door swung jauntily open, more passionately still he grabbed little Annie by the waist.

 

Perhaps he could help her _see._

 

Triumphantly, and God happily forgotten, Mr Ainsworth forced the petite woman against the wall and rammed his mouth hungrily against her own.

 

This was not, however, accompanied by the terrified, pitiful scrabbling that he had remembered from last time (and had honestly rather enjoyed), rather Ann sent a sharp knee straight to his swelling groin.

 

He grunted in pain and surprise.

 

“No, Annie, no,” he said roughly, grabbing hold of her hair. “Don’t you want-”

 

Mr Ainsworth froze as he looked down into, rather the blue eyes he expected, a pair of Mediterranean brown ones.

 

“M-Mrs Rothschild?” he stammered, horrified, before he was hit by a barrage of angry French.

 

“Darling?” cried the one voice which could currently make the situation worse. “Ou est-”

 

Mr Rothschild’s eyes widened as he rounded the corner saw what has happening to his beloved wife. 

 

At his shoulder, was the _real_ Ann and that freaky Miss Lister she was so fond of, along with his own wife and a handful of Mr Rothschild’s assorted entourage who, in record time, had Mr Ainsworth’s rough groping hands out from the woman’s underclothes and bound painfully behind his back.

 

“Now…I’m not saying there’s a right woman to assault,” came the sickening smug voice of Miss Walker’s strange new friend as one of the very richest men in the world swelled with rage. “But you assaulted the _wrong_ woman.”

 

The voice became a snarl.

 

_“Twice.”_

 

Mr Ainsworth was temporarily distracted from Miss Lister as Mrs Rothschild slapped him across the face leaving a angry red welt.

 

“He’s owed a second, actually!” Anne said cheerfully, striding forwards to give her aching knuckles the release they deserved. “Turn the other cheek, there’s a good chap.”

 

As Miss Lister hit him, his jaw cracked loudly.

 

“I…I have a service!” he gasped as the grip of the unyielding bodyguards grew more and more ferocious. “I-I’m needed at the church! You couldn’t possibly…”

 

They rather thought they could.

 

Mr Ainsworth tried a different tactic.

 

“M-my wife is-”

 

“Leaving,” came her retreating voice, blank, not with shock, but with resignation.

 

Mariana, who had been watching, transfixed, recognised that particular marital tiredness and in a rare gesture of selflessness dashed off too to make sure she was alright.

 

“You know what’s ze new religion een zis country?” snarled Mr Rothschild as last, gathering the best of his English for the sake of the lowlife and thrusting a careless wad of banknotes in the man’s face. “And I ‘ave _plenty.”_

 

“You’re going to spend your life in jail for zis!” added his wife, wiping her mouth with disgust. “And zat’s if you’re _lucky!”_

 

As fate would have it, it was _not_ Mr Ainsworth’s night to be lucky, as after he had been hauled through the gawping guests to a waiting motorcar outside, the vehicle set off, not towards the constabulary, but the rougher part of town.

 

“I hope he’ll be alright,” Ann said anxiously, watching the car speed away.

 

“Yes,” Anne said cheerfully, and a little relieved that she hadn’t needed to call in her gangster’s favour so soon. “He’ll be just fine, I’m sure.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew! And that’s why the wait has been so long for this chapter!
> 
> As much as I wanted Anne to use that dept (as was the original plan) I decided to have Mr Ainsworth dig his own grave, in a way.
> 
> …Plus the plot (and there’s still plenty of that to go) kinda demanded it in the end.
> 
> Please tell me what you think! 
> 
> And I hope you enjoyed the fluff in the chapter (which next chapter will morph into something more…)
> 
> Peace and love :)


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for such a long wait!
> 
> (Hehehehe...that's what she said...)
> 
> But seriously, though, I do feel bad about it but I really haven't had much time lately and I need an awful lot of it to make each chapter good, or even vaguely readable.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you like this and thank you for sticking around despite the lack of updates :)

 

“In hindsight, I think that the whole visit was an unquestionable success,” Anne commented chirpily as she stretched out lavishly in bed next to her sleepy dandelion, something she had missed during the Ainsworths' stay, now cut short by the fact that after a week, tragically, Mr Ainsworth had _not_ reappeared.

 

Miss Walker frowned.

 

“Poor Mrs Ainsworth…” she muttered, kneading her bedclothes anxiously as she contemplated the ruin of her slow but sweet-natured friend.

 

“She’ll be alright,” Anne decided optimistically. “She seemed to be embarrassed more than anything else. And it was clear she knew exactly what he was like. The whole thing wasn’t much of a shock to her.”

 

“Is she still staying with Mariana in your old room at the Grand?” Ann whispered, cuddling tighter to Miss Lister and burying her nose in the collar of the starched pyjamas she liked to wear.

 

“Yes, that’ll take her mind off things,” Anne chuckled darkly with the first real twinges of sympathy for the reverend’s wife as she stroked the particularly beloved curls that sat just above Ann’s ear. “…Poor Mrs Ainsworth, indeed.”

 

“Ought to to invite the two of them to the Rothschilds' thing tonight?” the owner of the curls continued haltingly, casting her mind to the party which was to unofficially celebrate Mr Ainsworth’s…retirement, and wondering if that would be in rather poor taste.

 

Anne sighed, both with the thought of dealing with Mariana and that of Ann’s kindness.

 

“I probably ought to,” she replied after a moment of heavy thinking. “But I really don’t have the strength for another argument with her.”

 

“Then _I’ll_ go,” Miss Walker declared bravely.

 

Miss Lister chucked.

 

“Ann, there’s selflessness,” she said, jiggling the dandelion gently in her arms. “And then there’s _masochism…”_

 

“We’ll both go, then,” the dandelion decided wisely, and so they did.

 

“How are you, Miss Walker?” Mariana asked when the Annes had arrived at the hotel, to which Miss Lister had walked rather more _slowly_ than normal.

 

The woman’s greeting struck Anne as being rather impressively cordial, given her way of being _singularly_ unpleasant.

 

“Quite well, thank you,” Ann replied shyly, feeling the almost tangible hate radiating from the older woman.

 

It seemed the good humour could not last because then silence ensued.

 

Characteristically, Anne was the first to begin to fidget.

 

“How’s Mrs Ainsworth?” she asked at last, with her best manners.

 

“How do you bloody think she is, Anne?” Mariana responded irritably, reaching the end of the tether she no longer had. “Disgraced by her husband in public! Is there anything _worse?”_

 

“I don’t know…” Anne said sarcastically, rising to her baiting. “Being _assaulted,_ perhaps?”

 

“Being assaulted doesn’t leave such long-term effects,” Mariana corrected her learnedly.

 

Anne thought of the trembling legs that, since the day Mr Ainsworth had been mentioned, Ann had been too afraid to open.

 

“Oh _doesn’t_ it, Mariana?” Anne snapped, losing her temper in record time. “Well, maybe we should have Mr Ainsworth back again, then?”

 

Mariana laughed with a hint of cruelty.

 

“You think they’ve _not_ killed him?” she asked Miss Lister.

 

Hearing the inevitable out loud, Ann gave a gasp of shock and felt Miss Lister’s hand on her own, which did little to alleviate the tension in the room as Mrs Lawton’s eyes fell on the gesture like a hawk’s.

 

“Do you need me to continue to pay for your rooms?” Anne asked stiffly as Mariana smirked at Ann in a way designed to hurt, as if trying to untangle her delicate fingers from Miss Lister’s by force of will.

 

“No, Mrs Ainsworth can pay…” she answered before giving a pointed sniff. “With whatever funds her lowlife of a husband has provided for her. I-”

 

“Where _is_ Mrs Ainsworth, may I ask?” interrupted Anne loudly, feeling her dandelion start to tremble. “You haven’t drowned her in the bathtub have you, Mariana?”

 

Miss Lister turned to her dandelion who had frozen into a heavy stillness and was rather more silent than normal.

 

“Wouldn’t put it past her,” she muttered in the woman’s little ear.

 

“She’s at the constabulary trying to get them to find out what happened,” Mariana informed them snappily.

 

 _“She_ doesn’t care!” Miss Lister spluttered with the beginning of a laugh.

 

“But she has to _look_ like she does,” Mariana explained impatiently. “Oh _how_ social intricacies are wasted on you, Anne.”

 

At this, the dandelion, (who had just turned pink, not with anxiety, but with _fury),_ stood up.

 

“I think that is _very_ cruel of you, Mrs Lawton,” she said, shocking even herself with the proclamation.

 

_I confess myself gobsmacked, amazed that Miss Walker’s firmer side dared show its face in public. I think it rather suits her…_

 

“My _dear_ girl,” Mariana replied, also rising, and in fact relishing the chance to tell the over-dressed, rich young beauty who had _stolen Anne Lister,_ just what she thought of her. “Perhaps your youth blinds you, but often people only want to use you.”

 

She looked pointedly to Anne.

 

“For you money, for instance,” she suggested. “Or for _…sex.”_

 

“Mariana,” Miss Lister warned.

 

“Anne Lister is one of those people,” the woman continued. “And soon you will learn so.”

 

“Perhaps,” the dandelion continued fiercely, wondering what had possessed her. “But there are some things I _have_ learnt, such as those who beg cannot choose. So here…”

 

She fished in her purse and slammed a wad of money onto the table.

 

“For the rooms,” she said, reeling on her love’s behalf. “Consider it charity.”

 

With her parting words echoing in the room, the wealthy Miss Walker dragged Miss Lister, who didn’t seem to know whether she was in ecstasy or shock, from the hotel and into their motorcar.

 

“Back to the apartment, if you will, James,” Miss Walker said authoritatively.

 

“Right’o, Miss,” he said in his steady way, and began the drive.

 

“Goodness, isn’t she rude!” Ann clucked, fussing with her coat collar, still a little flushed from her outburst. _“What_ things to _say!_ And…Anne?”

 

Beside her, Miss Lister didn’t look quite well.

 

“I don’t quite know what just happened,” Miss Lister said vaguely. “Either that was a very strange dream or I might have to fall even more in love with you.”

 

“Wha…oh,” Miss Walker said.

 

She giggled as a small blush painted her face rosy pink.

 

“Well _I’m_ awake, or I’m fairly sure,” Ann said thoughtfully. “But isn’t it strange, though, how one doesn’t know they’re dreaming when they’re-”

 

Like iron, Miss Lister’s lips were suddenly upon her dandelion’s, destroying any hope that she could finish her musings out loud. Or at all, in fact.

 

All she could think about was the warmth filling her body and the sureness with which Anne held her.

 

“Ann, I love you so much,” she whispered horsely after their kiss had been broken and she had folded the younger woman into a hug. “You’re so…immeasurably precious and a really don’t know what I would do without you.”

 

“You’d make me very lonely,” the dandelion whispered wittily, brushing Miss Lister’s cheek. 

 

She then remembered, with blunt horror, that they were not, in fact, alone.

 

“Sorry, James!” Miss Walker gasped.

 

“Sorry for what, Ma’am?” he replied mildly. “I’m afraid I was just watching the road.”

 

“Good chap,” Miss Lister said approvingly, her most charming grin on her face. “We do appreciate your discretion.”

 

“I’ve seen a lot in my time, me,” James chuckled fondly.

 

“Except nothing just then,” Miss Lister reminded him.

 

“Course not, Ma’am,” he said with a private smirk as he drove the two lovers the rest of the way home.

 

 

 

***

 

 

 

“That’s a lovely dress,” Anne commented as her dandelion appeared from the depths of her dressing room.

 

“Yes, but it is rather….rather a _short_ dress,” Miss Walker said carefully. “It’s the new thing, according to Mrs Rothschild but…”

 

Anne laughed.

 

 _“Mrs Rothschild_ decides what the ‘new thing’ _is,_ Miss Walker.”

 

“I feel scandalous!” Ann flapped, aghast at the space between her knee and the skirt’s hem. “I feel as if I have no clothes on at all! I can’t go out like this!”

 

“You look glorious, Ann,” Miss Lister whispered. “Will you wear it for _me?”_

 

Miss Walker looked into the very solemn brown eyes glittering hopefully at her and sighed.

 

“Alright. For _you,_ Anne,” she conceded with a smile.

 

“But only if you are comfortable,” Miss Lister said quickly.

 

“I think Mrs Rothschild would fuss if I hadn’t worn it…”

 

“That’s the spirit!” Anne cried, beaming alarmingly attractively.

 

Ann smiled at Miss Lister’s enthusiasm which, though delightful, became a little overwhelming in the motor car and as the doors opened at their destination and Miss Lister sprung out to enjoy the richness of socialising, Ann felt weak and rather suddenly quite flustered. 

 

Suddenly afraid of all the wandering eyes and hands in the room, Ann excused herself politely from the group of chatter that had formed around her and dashed to the lavatory. However, she then realised her mistake.

 

“Oh goodness!” she dandelion whispered to herself as she remembered how Mr Ainsworth had waited outside the lavatories for whom to he thought to be her. “I’m trapped!”

 

Shrinking against the wall, poor Miss Walker’s mind was full of the prospect of ambush and ruin. Kidnap and imprisonment!

 

She would have to wait in the lavatory forever! She’d starve! She’d…

 

The dandelion froze as the door opened, but melted again as the intruder took her gently against her chest.

 

“Why did I know you might be hiding in here?” said the kind voice, and suddenly Miss Lister’s thumbs were brushing away the tears that the dandelion hadn’t realised had fallen down her pale cheeks.

 

“I don’t k-know…after Mr Ainsworth…and what could have almost happened last week, I was afraid to come back out of the lavatory in case someone was waiting for me,” Ann garbled, holding on to Miss Lister for dear life.

 

“Oh Ann….” the other woman whispered softly. “Shhhhh, it’s alright.”

 

“Y-you must think I’m silly,” Ann whispered, hoarse.

 

“I don’t,” Anne assured her truthfully. “I think that you’ve had a horrible experience and that it will take a while to go away, but it will, Ann, I promise.”

 

She pressed a kiss to her dandelion’s soft knuckles.

 

“It’s not that I don’t want you, Anne,” Miss Walker whispered, cupping the other woman’s cheek. “Please know that.”

 

Miss Lister smiled ruefully.

 

“You’re more than I could ever wish for, Ann,” she said.

 

The curls shook furiously as Miss Walker disagreed, though she smiled.

 

“No, Anne, I…” the dandelion searched for words. “I can’t believe you stay with me. That you…”

 

She sighed uselessly and the smile vanished again.

 

“You deserve more than…” she said, gesturing to herself.

 

“I don’t think in terms of what I deserve, Ann,” Miss Lister said quietly. “Rather, what I want. And I want _you._ I always have and I always will.”

 

“I want you, too,” the dandelion replied, so quietly she was only audible to Miss Lister by their proximity.

 

“Ann, I’ve been keeping my distance to show that I love you,” Miss Lister continued passionately. “But I…I would have you right here in this bathroom if I could!”

 

“You wouldn’t!” Miss Walker chuckled. “I look…gah! I look ridiculous in this dress! What was I thinking?”

 

“Ann. Stop fussing!” Miss Lister replied, eyes fixed very heavily on the dress, or rather the length of leg below it. “You look _lovely.”_

 

Thinking Ann may need a little proof of this, Miss Lister brushed her dandelion’s lips softly with her own, imagining the small smile of relief Ann often wore when she pulled away from such kisses.

 

However, the sight was stolen from her as Miss Walker did not pull away, rather leant in closer and repeated Anne’s action more forcefully, crushing her mouth to the other woman’s (all in all, Miss Lister’s loss was very short-lived).

 

 _“So_ lovely…” Anne repeated breathlessly, finally allowing herself the thrill of running her hand up Ann’s thigh - something she had been fantasising about all evening.

 

The rose gave a whimper. 

 

“So do you, Anne!” she burst, sapphire eyes suddenly dark as coat buttons, and showing absolutely no intension of removing Miss Lister’s hand from its new favourite place, stroking her inner-thigh.

 

“Miss Walker…” Miss Lister began in her most dangerously seductive voice, the one that seemed to speak directly to the resident butterflies in Ann’s tummy. “Would you be terribly upset of we didn’t make it out of the bathroom?”

 

“Um…I…”

 

With a gasp, the dandelion was struck dumb as Miss Lister brushed a finger from her cheek and, very pointedly, down between her breasts. And down…and _down…_

 

“Anne! Should we really be doing this… _here?”_ Miss Walker worried, with an anxious glance to the door.

 

“It’s what these parties are for,” Miss Lister purred. “Unless you object?”

 

“Someone could come in, Anne!” Ann said, both shocked and awed by her lover’s daring.

 

“But doesn’t it excite you?” Miss Lister whispered, so close that she could be Ann’s own thoughts. “Thrill you a little?”

 

The dandelion considered and, strangely enough…it _did._

 

With a wash of heat, the poor dandelion was overcome, and reason was politely declined.

 

“Yes, it thrills me,” she continued in a whisper. _“You_ thrill me Anne…and this…”

 

The dandelion made a choked sound as, after a leisurely journey southwards, Miss Lister’s fingers found their target.

 

“Is just…”

 

The rose tailed off, afraid that anything she said wouldn’t do the sensation justice and even Miss Lister, normally so eloquent, couldn’t find the words to describe how she felt with her face buried in Ann’s neck and her hand buried somewhere quite different.

 

“Anne I… _Anne…”_

 

The dandelion’s head tipped lazily back against the wall, spilling clouds of hair over her shoulders like honey.

 

With a small hungry growl, Miss Lister kissed first the newly-exposed throat and then roughly along Ann’s jaw, pulling deliberately at the skin and enjoying the reflexive tightening of Ann’s fingers on her waist each time she did so.

 

Angling the two of them into a stall and shutting the door, Miss Lister kissed Miss Walker again with a hand tangled in her curls.

 

Then, with a small whimper of protest from Ann, soothed benevolently by a deeper kiss, Miss Lister freed her other hand from its heavenly prison and with it slipped the dandelion’s dress off one of her shoulders.

 

Acutely aware of the time-pressure of their situation, Miss Lister returned her hand and with vigour continued her work.

 

“Yes…Anne…please…” gasped the rose, weak with pleasure. “Miss Lister… _yes…”_

 

With rapture, Miss Lister watched her love’s eyes close sleepily as she flew higher, and higher and-

 

With a bang, the door was flung open and Miss Lister’s hand was gone.

 

Paralysed with horror, Ann expected screams as their sin was discovered but the women were so giggly and drunk they were sure not to have noticed anything amiss, being too absorbed in their own hilarity.

 

Creeping tentatively out of the stall, Ann saw Miss Lister at the sink washing her hands.

 

Weak kneed, Ann leant against the wall.

 

“I’ll just stay and…clean up a little,” she whispered to her love who looked remarkably unruffled, considering what had transpired.

 

“Will you be alright, Ann?” she hissed fugitively.

 

“Y-yes,” Ann breathed. “But please go and mingle. We’ve been gone too long. People will be wondering where we’ve gone.”

 

With a nod, Miss Lister exited the bathroom.

 

Her heart was still pounding passion around her body so, grabbing a glass of champagne, Anne headed for the balcony and the freezing winter night to clear her head.

 

She had acted rashly, yes. But _God_ had it not been for those stupid women…

 

Anne actually longed to charge back in there, grab her little dandelion from the throngs of people and demand that they leave but that wouldn’t do and they had a perfectly private and comfortable bed back at the apartment where such things took place more prudently.

 

Thoughtfully, Miss Lister looked over her city where new buildings were growing unimaginably high like magic beanstalks.

 

Lights glittered over the land of prosperity but with them she felt a sudden pang of homesickness for the dark Yorkshire evening, her walks in the moorland, bickering with her sister, her Aunt, Shibden, the ring she had unconventionally inherited to give to whomever she wished to marry…

 

“I’m doing the right thing,” she muttered to herself, thinking of Miss Walker.

 

It hadn’t been long since the two of them had met, but it was time. 

 

Aside from the frivolities provided by their friends, Anne had planned on this being a very special night for her darling, brilliant, brave dandelion and at the thought the ring burned in her pocket.

 

She didn’t know where, when or _how_ one proposed to the love of their life but this crisp, glittering evening seemed a good time to do so.

 

Miss Lister’s silence was interrupted suddenly by the opening of the door and, equally suddenly, by some supernatural force, Miss Lister suddenly became very irritable and somehow knew who had joined her.

 

“Hullo Anne,” Mr Elton said, looking characteristically dapper and wearing also his favourite exaggerated cheekiness.

 

“What?” Miss Lister sighed, turning to face her intruder who, upon closer scrutiny, looked unusually nervous.

 

“Beautiful night, isn’t it?” he attempted bravely.

 

“Hmm, yes it was,” Miss Lister replied, straight-faced.

 

“I’m…I’m so glad you came,” the man added, coming to stand next to Anne.

 

“It would be rude to the Rothschilds if I didn’t,” she told him, in the way she might explain to a child. “Especially with the investment they’ve just made in us.”

 

“I meant to New York,” he said with a softness Anne didn’t expect. “To the company.”

 

Miss Lister smirked. 

 

“I should think so, too,” she said with a quirked eyebrow. “I’ve made you a great deal of money.”

 

Mr Elton was quiet for a moment and so Anne wondered if he might be ill. He wasn’t looking quite right either.

 

“I don’t just care about money, though,” he said at last, which Anne found rather a deeply odd thing for him to say. “There are things I…”

 

He took a deep frosty breath.

 

“Things I want that money can’t buy.”

 

“Like what, for instance?” Miss Lister asked, interest peaked.

 

However, the situation quickly became perhaps a little _too_ interesting as Elton seized Anne by her jacketed shoulders and began to speak fervently.

 

“Miss Lister…Anne,” he burst. “I think we should get married!”

 

It took the lady herself a moment to comprehend what he had said.

 

“Are you drunk?” she spluttered.

 

“I’m am stone-cold sober,” he said earnestly.

 

“Or _joking?_ I can’t stand you, Elton!” Anne exclaimed.

 

“I don’t think that’s entirely true…?” he pleaded.

 

And no, it wasn’t entirely true, although Anne regarded the man as more of an annoying younger brother than…

 

…Goodness, she couldn’t even _fathom_ such a thing.

 

“If this is about money…” Anne continued, trying another angle. “Then-”

 

“No, Anne, it’s not,” he whispered, tears springing into his eyes. “It’s about _so_ much more than that, believe me. I wouldn’t ask if I weren’t-”

 

“I will _never_ marry you, Jeff!” Miss Lister laughed, and he conceded with a nod before ploughing on regardless, which was his way.

 

“Just listen,” he begged. “You may reconsider.”

 

Listen she did, and Miss Lister’s eyebrows drew further and further together as Mr Elton spun out his emotional plea.

 

When he had finished, Anne felt almost hysterical with his…what was the characteristic even called?

 

Stupidity? Presumptuousness? Did that cover it?

 

She turned away for a moment to assess the situation without having to see his stupidly hopeful face peering at her.

 

She didn’t know whether she wanted to laugh or cry.

 

Possibly hit him.

 

At last she strode back.

 

 _“It’s not often I’m speechless, Jeff!”_ she spluttered.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everybody!
> 
> I know this had been a while. I've been busy and there's nothing I can do about it but hopefully this will make up for things.
> 
> Or maybe the opposite - there is a shock coming, I'll warn you.
> 
> In any case, there's a bit of everything in this chapter so read on and enjoy :)
> 
> Also, as always, thank you for your lovely comments! I see all of them even if I can't reply straight away and they really are the only reason this is getting finished!

 

“Awfully quiet, Miss Walker,” Anne remarked as she handed her coat to James and strode through the lobby of their home.

 

Having made straight for the bedroom that she and her dandelion pretended not to share, Miss Lister had half-hoped that she and her precious Miss Walker might continue their tryst but Ann seemed withdrawn, and rather not in the mood as she brushed out her curls, face turned away from the other woman.

 

Funny…Ann _was_ being awfully quiet…

 

Too quiet to even respond to Miss Lister, she merely shrugged.

 

“Are you tired, Ann?” Miss Lister tried. “Goodness knows that architect could talk. I thought I might _expire_ before his last lecture was finished.”

 

Miss Lister huffed a laugh at her own wit. 

 

Ann still said nothing. 

 

The silence waited for a moment.

 

“You’re upset with me,” Anne then decided as, softly, the dandelion’s hairbrush was returned to the table. 

 

The dandelion gave a little sniffle, satisfactorily answering her love’s question.

 

Anne looked away, troubled, and huffed as she tried to find the right words.

 

“It was wrong of me to do what I did,” she said thickly, seeing visions of Ann’s soft skin against the wall of the Rothschilds’ bathroom and remembering with shame how inexperienced and perhaps reluctant little Ann may have been.

 

“It wasn’t _that,_ Miss Lister,” Ann said in a whisper.

 

“Then what?” Anne asked kindly, scooting over to her dandelion and taking one of her limp hands.

 

Frowning at its coldness, Anne wrapped it in both of hers and began rubbing smooth circles into the skin to soothe her love.

 

Apparently this was ineffective as the silence continued to sit like lead in Anne’s stomach.

 

“If you don’t tell me how am I expected to do anything to rectify my mistake, hmmm?” Miss Lister asked.

 

She jiggled Miss Walker playfully but the dandelion determinedly did not let Anne’s effort move her an inch.

 

“Ann, this is getting rather tiresome,” Miss Lister sighed at last, the anger in her voice a product of her anxiety at Miss Walker’s behaviour. “Please will you stop being a bore and we can have a proper, productive conversation! Honestly! You’d think-”

 

“I heard some gossip,” Ann breathed, staring blankly at the wall as she spoke, soft voice silencing Miss Lister like a gunshot. “At the party.”

 

“About me?” Miss Lister asked.

 

Ann’s silence was taken as affirmation.

 

Miss Lister chuckled.

 

“Yes, yes, it’s all true…” she smirked, throwing her arm out theatrically. “I’m a fiendish queer flirt who likes taking women to bed.”

 

She moved to whisper against her dandelion’s deliciously soft earlobe.

 

“Can you _believe_ it, Miss Walker?” she wondered, with a light kiss to the very same spot.

 

However, in her closeness, Anne caught an alarming glint of moisture on her dandelion’s cheek.

 

“Ann…” Miss Lister said worriedly, pulling away to take a good look at her dandelion’s fcae. “Ann are you _crying?”_

 

Indeed she was, and, at Miss Lister’s observation, the sobs began in ernest, swaying the younger woman like a bitter winter wind.

 

“Mrs…Mrs P-Priestly said that Mr Elton pr- _proposed_ to you!” Ann choked, quaking where she sat.

 

“How did she…?” wondered Anne, anger twisting her face for her beloved’s distress. “Interfering cow! I’ll-”

 

“What did you _say,_ Anne?” Miss Walker demanded, eyes deep with seriousness as they met Miss Lister’s.

 

“I told him ‘no’!” the older woman spluttered, launching herself to her feet. “Of course I…”

 

The lie curdled in her belly like sour milk.

 

“I told him I’d have to think about it,” she choked as an amendment, heart searing at  the hurt she saw on her darling’s tear-streaked face.

 

“Why?” Ann cried, heart shattering. “After…after what we’ve done! All you _said!_ You said you could never…And now you’re going to m-marry _him?”_

 

“It’s not like that, Ann, I swear!” Anne insisted, panicked by her dandelion’s pain and swooping down to take both of her love’s trembling hands. “He…made an interesting offer, and yes, despite all I have told you, and myself, I did consider marrying him but then, how could I? When he expected his partner to marry _you_ to complete the deception!”

 

“What?” Miss Walker breathed after her mind had caught up with the slurry of Miss Lister’s urgent speech.

 

“He…he’s like us,” Anne continued in a softer tone. “He loves people of the same sex. He introduced me to his…companion - a journalist. He writes for the New York times. His name’s John Harrington.”

 

“So…” frowned the dandelion. “I…would marry…John Harrington?…And you would marry Jeff Elton?”

 

“Yes, or vice versa,” Anne nodded. “And then we could all continue our respective relationships without incurring the wrath of society for our impropriety, yes.”

 

Miss Walker’s face cleared and in her relief she gave a loud laugh, quite unlike her normal nervous giggle.

 

“Why didn’t you say anything to me?” she breathed, cupping Miss Lister’s face. “I thought…I thought…”

 

“I didn’t say anything because the whole thing is preposterous and he’s a bloody idiot, that’s why,” Anne grinned, trying to calm her pounding heart.

 

In vain, it seemed, as she become more and more animated with each word. 

 

“I told him to have some courage - that if _we_ can do it, so can _he.”_

 

“Do what?” Miss Walker wondered.

 

“Be…be more _open_ about it!” Anne burst. “I…”

 

There was a numb pause while the part of Anne’s brain designed to torture her twisted her tongue as if she had chewed on barbed wire.

 

“I want to take the sacrament with you!”

 

Oh!

 

She _had_ managed to say it, after all.

 

“You…you _do?”_ breathed Ann, enraptured.

 

“Yes, and we could live together,” Miss Lister continued in a rush. “I-I mean, it works well now, doesn’t it? Living together?”

 

“Yes…” Ann said, eyes wide as saucers. “B-but my relatives would-”

 

“Fuck your relatives!” Anne cried, on her feet suddenly. “Fuck the _Rawsons,_ fuck the _Priestlys,_ fuck all of them. I want you…”

 

Feeling that the moment had arrived, with shaking fingers Anne withdrew the ring from her pocket as she fell to her knees in front of her enraptured dandelion.

 

“I want you to be my _wife,_ Ann,” she declared passionately, and, without so much as a quiver, her dandelion agreed. 

 

“Oh Anne, yes!” was Walker spluttered. “I… _yes!_ Yes, I…Oh _Anne!”_

 

Miss Lister laughed as Ann swayed forward and locked her arms around the other woman like iron, sobbing with happiness.

 

“Gracious me!” Anne chuckled, feeling her spirit soar so high it entered orbit and could look back down on glittering New York and the two displaced, shunned and abandoned women who were destined to love one another.

 

Holding her love’s cheeks tenderly between her palms, Anne planted kiss after kiss to Miss Walker’s soft lips which smiled wider and wider with their every touch. The dandelion’s Prague-sky eyes glittered with incredulous love.

 

“Anne,” Miss Walker whispered, smiling through tears of joy as she shuffled herself onto the bed with Miss Lister following her unconsciously like a particularly well-read magnet. “Come here!”

 

Anne who, proactive as always, already _was_ there, instead took the initiative to kiss her dandelion slowly before pulling away only far enough to see the ring safely onto Ann’s little artist’s finger.

 

“It’s beautiful,” Miss Walker breathed.

 

With a crooked grin, Miss Lister traced the side of the dandelion’s face.

 

“Yes…” she crooned. “Yes it is.”

 

Miss Walker squealed as she suddenly found her back against the bed where Miss Lister had pinned her, eyes darting down to the hemline of the daringly short dress which, in its surprise, had become slightly more daring still.

 

Ann’s distinctively soft breaths became a little laboured and, seizing Miss Lister’s gaze with her own, she took one of Anne’s clever hands and placed it tenderly over her pounding heart.

 

Or, one could say, it was her heaving breast Anne now held.

 

“Ann…” Miss Lister whispered breathlessly. 

 

She felt as if she were tumbling down into her lover’s eyes. As if she were at once totally captive but completely freed.

 

Her body was heaving with the need to be one with her perfect rose.

 

“Miss Walker, you know I love you more than anything in the whole _world…”_ she choked, as she fondled the swell of the pink rosebud blooming under the dress fabric.

 

Looking almost pained, Miss Walker’s head fell back against the pillow as she gave a cry of surrender to the other woman. 

 

Surrender was, however, a temporary position.

 

The rose actually fancied more of an _alliance._

 

Grasping Miss Lister’s hand, she laced their fingers and brought it down and _down_ until it had breached the boundary of the dress and crept slowly to the rose’s very centre.

 

“Then show me,” Ann gasped.

 

 

***

 

 

When the two women woke the next morning, tangled impossibly tightly together like a mess of string, the timid February sunshine was already creeping through the gap between Ann’s expensive curtains.

 

Sighing contentedly, Miss Lister stretched out like a cat and pulled her dandelion closer against her own body.

 

“I never want to leave this bed,” the dandelion declared, by way of a ‘good morning’.

 

“I share your sentiment exactly, Miss Walker,” Miss Lister sighed. “Alas, the Suffrage protest is scheduled for today.”

 

She chuckled.

 

“It might be rather bad form if I didn’t turn up, seeing as I organised the thing.”

 

“It’s all dreadfully exciting…” Ann whispered, her face falling a little. “And dreadfully brave…”

 

Then, she confessed one of the gnawing fears that had been bothering her more and more as Anne became increasingly involved with the protestors.

 

“Anne I have a very bad feeling about the whole thing,” she explained to the head that had just buried itself against her neck, tickling her with lazy kisses.

 

“Hmmmm?” mumbled the head, extracting itself to listen better.

 

“People do get…get _arrested,_ you know, Anne…” the dandelion stated haltingly.

 

“I’d like to see them try and arrest me,” Anne chuckled in a very distinct way that made Ann’s tummy do little flips.

 

The additional appearance of the enthusiastic crooked half-smile that made Anne alarmingly attractive did nothing to help matters.

 

“Miss Lister…” Miss Walker said breathlessly. “I…I wonder if…if we?”

 

“If we…?” repeated Miss Lister with a glint in her eye and, again, the poor dandelion was again thrown mercilessly back against the bed with pleasure.

 

However, in the aftermath of sharing again Miss Lister’s unquenchable enthusiasm for the female body, the almost supernatural bliss that Ann felt was underlain with worry because the dandelion was not accustomed to such a feeling, and wondered what inevitable price would have to be paid for it.

 

It was with a cold wash of dread that Miss Lister left her alone and rather wilted in bed and the entirely of washing, dressing and breakfast took on the haze of slight unreality.  

 

No improvement was to be found in the motorcar where the ring that now sat upon Ann’s finger seemed impossibly heavy and the air was hung with nervousness.

 

“Anne, I love you. Be _safe,”_ Miss Walker whispered with an embrace as, at their destination, they caught sight of the other suffragettes and Miss Lister waved furiously. “Don’t get carried away.”

 

But, as soon as Miss Lister had disentangled herself from Ann’s embrace, Miss Walker’s nightmare began to play out, for ‘carried away’ was something that Anne frequently became.

 

Anxiously, the dandelion watched Anne Lister stride in front of the other protestors to lead the march while the street filled with the sounds of anger.

 

“Anne,” Miss Walker whispered.

 

Miss Lister screamed obscene things at the men gathered beside the protestors.

 

“Anne…” Miss Walker warned again in an inaudible breath.

 

Her beloved was unrolling a picture of the president.

 

“Oh Anne, _don’t…”_ Miss Walker gasped as, with a triumphant yell, the women’s ring leader, in full splendour, set the photograph alight.

 

With this outright act of defiance acting as an unspoken signal, like a tsunami, the police were set to work.

 

Odd, really, how a perfectly ordinary street can be suddenly awash with violence, with the sound of smashing glass and women’s screams.

 

One woman in particular was screaming loudest, a flurry of abuse as she writhed like a wildcat in the hands of her captors.

 

Immediately, the dandelion was running after Anne and the policemen that had her in their grasp.

 

“Anne! Anne!” she screamed. “Stop! You’re _hurting_ her! _…Anne!”_

 

Placards and violence battered Miss Walker as she barrelled through the fray, yet she didn’t slow, reaching Miss Lister just as the wildcat became suddenly still which, in Miss Lister’s case, was nothing if not an alarming turn of events.

 

“Let her _go!”_ Miss Walker insisted as she charged the group of men.

 

Sadly, dandelions are famously ineffective against the steel grips of seasoned policemen and here was no exception. The poor woman was cast away to the wind by merciless hands and it was only by the grace of a proactive James that Ann was caught by the waist before she could fall onto the hard ground.

 

It was always going to end this way. This was God’s judgement.

 

With a sickening plunge of terror, Ann knew full well that this was the point at which her happiness was swept away in a swell of tragedy.

 

The doors of the van closed, and all Miss Walker could see of Anne Lister was blood.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So.
> 
> Now we know where Mr Elton's rather exaggerated flirting comes from...
> 
> And don't panic. I know the ending to this chapter is horrific but I'm just being true to the real protests that took place in New York at the time.
> 
> By the way, the next chapter is the very last one! 
> 
> And don't worry - remember that Miss Lister still has a BIG ace to play...

**Author's Note:**

> Please keep reading! There is more on the way!


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